Seas Of Change
by threemine2013
Summary: With the merman chamber deactivated, and the pod back home, peace has returned to Mako Island and the merpeople on the Gold Coast. But when Evie gets a foster sister, some mermaids turn out to still be wary of Zac's presence, and mermen are confirmed to be alive and plentiful, can that state of things last? AU from the end of 'The Chosen One'. Part of my 'Shifting Tides' universe.
1. Chapter 1: The Calm Before The Storm

**Hi. Welcome to all who decided to read this story. I hope you enjoy it. But before we begin, please take the time to read a few important notes.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own H2O - Just Add Water or Mako Mermaids - An H2O Adventure. Both those properties belong to Jonathan M. Shiff Productions.**

 **Credit note: The idea that gave origin to this fic was inspired by CrazyHayniac's oneshots 'A 'Pearl' in the Dust and 'A 'Pearl' in the Dust part 2'. Namely, the character of Alana, debuting in this chapter, was inspired by the character of Pearl in those oneshots. Thank you CrazyHayniac for allowing me to write about a character inspired by one of yours.**

 **A note on content: This story is an AU, as while it takes place after 'The Chosen One', overall it does not take what is known of the incoming Season 3 into account. Part of this is because Season 3 hasn't premiered yet and thus I don't know enough about it to write about it comfortably. Another part of it is because, with all due resepct to everyone involved in the series, I am not exactly thrilled about certain elements Season 3 is said to have. Some elements of Season 3 may be featured at some point, but please don't be surprised if anything you see contradicts something already known about Season 3.**

 **Regarding the rating: I will try my best to keep this story as tame as possible, but due to the nature of its plot, I am rating it higher than I understand the series is rated for safety reasons. Reader discretion may be advised regarding certain parts that may turn out to be more violent than what would be seen in the series.**

 **About the writing: Given that this story is about an Australian series, I have done my best to write in Australian English in the scenes involving Australian characters, but as English isn't even my first language, and I never tried to write in Australian English before, I'm not sure how well I did. Should any Australian reader read this, please don't be afraid to point out mistakes.**

 **A note regarding a change in description added on April 26th: I realized I made a mistake regarding one of the mermaids' descriptions (she is later named as Erignatha), so for those who are re-reading and noticed the change, that was the reason I made it. Sorry about that.**

 **A note regarding the timeline in this story: In this chapter's initial version, I had Mimmi referring to the 'current day', as in, the day this chapter takes place at, as a Saturday. However, after I had a new look at full moon calendars, I realized that I actually made a mistake, and according to the calendar, the full moon I was thinking of was actually on a Sunday. It does not make a big change in the overall flow of the story, but all the same, I apologize for my mistake.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – The Calm Before The Storm**

 _Life is good._

That was a thought that had come to Zac Blakely's mind many times over the last two months, but as it appeared again, while he approached the surface of the ocean around Mako Island after returning from a deep dive with his girlfriend Evie, he felt it was no less appropriate than during all other times. The pod was back, they had accepted both him and his girlfriend, he had all his mermaid friends in one place again, he had finally patched things up for good with Cam, and there were no more threats of magic-draining stones hanging either over him or anyone else he cared about.

All in all, things had been more peaceful over the last two months than during the rest of his return to being a merman, and Zac was determined to enjoy it to the fullest. Not that it was a difficult task, especially now, as he beheld Evie's look of elated wonder after their deepest dive since either of them had become – or in Zac's case, gone back to being – a merperson. He'd never seen her so awed or happy about her mermaid skills before, not even when she had started mastering the various kinds of magic the other mermaids were teaching her. But he wasn't complaining. Evie was a great girl, and she had had enough misfortunes in her life, some of which, Zac regretted, had been caused by him when he'd kept his tail a secret. It was great seeing her happy.

After they broke the surface and finished catching their breath, Zac asked, "So, how was that?"

Evie beamed. "It was incredible! I never dreamed we could go that far down."

Zac smiled as well. "I know. That's just how I felt the first time I did it, and I didn't even go that far down myself." He glanced down pensively, and then back up at her. "And I think we could have gone even deeper."

"I think so too," Evie replied. "But there was already nothing to see where we got, and it's dangerous to dive where you can't see anything."

Zac had nothing to add to that. He knew merpeople only held their breath rather than breathing underwater, so they could also drown. And although he'd never been on the receiving end of a marine predator's mouth, all the mermaids he'd met told him to be cautious around sharks and sea snakes and all sorts of marine creatures commonly perceived as dangerous by humans.

Then, whatever else he might have had to say on the issue was interrupted as two mermaids surfaced beside him and Evie. One of them, pale and brunette, was smiling, the other, tanned and blond, was scowling.

"I win!" Nixie said in a sing-song voice.

Lyla's scowl deepened at the victory proclamation.

"It was just luck," she grumbled.

Nixie's smile became teasing. "Then I must be getting really lucky today."

Lyla's scowl deepened again, but this time, it only lasted a few seconds before it softened. Then, as both she and Nixie noticed Zac's and Evie's presence, they turned toward them.

"Hi guys," Nixie said. "Thank you for witnessing my third victory against Lyla."

Lyla splashed water at Nixie. "Just you wait. On our next race I'll make you eat so many bubbles I'll blow you back past the starting point."

Nixie smirked. "We'll see about that."

Lyla smirked back. "I guess we will."

Before Nixie could reply to that, Lyla looked at Zac and Evie instead.

"So, where have you two been?" she asked.

"Past the drop-off," Zac replied. "I was taking Evie on a deep dive."

Lyla inched forward, her interest piqued. "How deep did you go?"

Zac thought for a few seconds. "Something like two hundred and fifty meters; I'm not sure about the exact figure. We could have gone farther down, but it was already far beyond the point where we could see, and feeling around underwater is unpleasant."

For a moment, he had the feeling he saw Lyla's lips twitching as if she was about to smile secretively, but if she was, she stopped herself. But he wouldn't put it past her to know something she wasn't sharing with them for some reason.

"It's still much deeper than I ever went when I dove the human way," Evie remarked. Her eyes grew unfocused as she dwelled on memories of those days, hints of sadness on them.

"Do you ever miss it?" Nixie asked.

Evie nodded. "Sort of."

Lyla and Nixie regarded her with interest, as if trying to determine what about diving with tanks and fins was better than doing it with a tail and breath-holding.

The moment Evie noticed, she added, "Don't get me wrong, diving like this is great, and both better and more practical in just about every other way." A sigh left her lips. "I just miss doing it with my dad."

An edge of sadness crept into her voice at the last sentence. Zac put a hand on her back, while the two mermaids looked at her sympathetically.

"Maybe someday you can tell him about your tail," Nixie put in. "Then you can go back to diving together."

Evie let out a sigh deeper than the previous one."I thought about telling him at least a hundred times. In the end, I never know how."

Nixie pushed herself forward with a few movements from her tail and then put her right hand on Evie's shoulder.

"Take it from someone who already had to share the secret. You'll figure it out when the time comes."

Zac raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean you want Evie to wait until her father is in an infinite water chamber and have him see her in full merperson glory at a completely unexpected and inappropriate time?"

All four of them laughed at that.

"I'll have you know my reveal to Ben went much better than the one to you," Nixie joked. "Not only that, but he even managed to deliver the shell Sirena made for Aquata."

That was new. Although Zac had learned about the kid only a few days after he'd made peace with the original mermaid trio, he'd never heard that Ben had actually managed to deliver the shell. It was good to know all the same, even though Aquata and Sirena were no longer apart and could hopefully exchange shells in person forever from now on.

"So, who's up for another race?" Lyla asked.

Nixie raised an eyebrow in interest, and Evie's eyes sparkled. Zac, however looked down.

"I can't. I promised my parents I'd have lunch with them." He looked at the sun to check the time. "And I actually think I already am a bit late."

Evie shifted forward and put her arms around his neck.

"Enjoy your lunch."

"Enjoy your race."

The two of them pecked each other's lips, and then Zac turned to Nixie and Lyla.

"See you," he called as he raised his arm.

Nixie raised her right hand. "Bye!"

"Bye," Lyla said, her voice lower than her friend's.

Those were the last words he heard before he turned around, dove under the water, and started moving at super speed, leaving the usual trail of bubbles behind him.

* * *

Not far from there, a lone mermaid approached Mako Island, her waist-length red hair trailing behind her. Her arms were stretched out like merpeople's tended to be when they swam, but rather than having her hands extended she held a large indigo urn in them. Her blue eyes flickered left and right on occasion, but most of the time they remained locked on her cargo, as if she feared it would vanish if she stopped looking at it.

Most reef creatures seemed uninterested in her, either making only minor detours to stay out of her way or acting as if she wasn't even there. But unbeknownst to the mermaid, a group of four had noticed her approach. And as she approached the reef, they too approached her, unseen by their mark, and all the more dangerous to her because of it.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the Sea World Marine Park, Mimmi sat down on a bench under a tree's shade, having put her cart away before her lunch break. The break was as welcome today as on other Sundays, which tended to be among the busiest days at work. At least she had gotten better at handling rushes like the one that had pushed her cart down the slope on her first day, and knew where to park to avoid other accidents of the like.

She knew that she could have quit her job two months ago, given the pod's return, but Mimmi didn't want to give up her connections to land, particularly one she would again be making much more directly within a few days.

She knew she wasn't alone. Sirena had also decided to keep working at the café, and, despite her own bad first experience with working, even Ondina had eventually gotten a job, only two weeks after the pod's return to Mako. The pod wasn't thrilled – even Nixie and Lyla did not seem to be interested in rebuilding their connections to land – but so far they were allowing them to do it. Whether that would last was another matter, but Mimmi believed that the philosophy of 'one day at a time' could at least be applied to certain things.

"And if you follow me, we wil be 'eading right to ze final stop of ourr tour," said a voice who just now rose above the general murmur surrounding her.

Mimmi's head snapped up. She knew enough about how the park worked by now to know what kind of person was approaching, but she had never heard that voice before.

She turned right to see who had spoken, and saw a tall guy around her age with light brown hair in a buzz cut and green eyes, wearing a park uniform like hers. A group of about thirty visitors walked behind him, and they were heading toward the same pool her cart had slid toward on her first day.

She had never seen him before, but he seemed normal enough, discounting the voice, which according to the videos she had watched in her laptop was because he had a German accent. He must be some new worker. It was far from rare; Mimmi had already seen more than one since she started working at the park, although none of them was a foreigner.

But as the group passed by her, she saw him looking at her out of the corner of his eyes. And although their gazes didn't meet, she thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in his gaze. She looked at him as firmly as she could, but some of it was to conceal the jump in her heart.

He didn't flinch, and didn't even stop or slow down for a more prolonged stare; he just kept leading the group toward the dolphin pool.

Once they were out of sight, Mimmi deflated – and it was only then she realized her heart was beating faster.

Why would this guy have looked at her like that? If she hadn't seen him before, surely he hadn't either. So why would he have looked at her like that? Had he just seen her when he came to apply for the job and was making sure it was the same person? Had she somehow met him before and didn't remember? Or, the most dangerous possibility, had he been following her around? Or was it none of those things?

If it was one of the first two, then there was no problem, but what should she do in the other two cases?

"Something wrong?" a voice asked from the same direction the guy's voice had come from.

Mimmi turned toward the voice, and saw her best friend, who must have just put away her ice cream cart for her own lunch break and come to meet her, like they had agreed this morning.

"What's the matter?" Ondina asked. "You look like you've seen an anglerfish."

Mimmi hesitated a bit. She knew Ondina could be hot-headed, and she didn't want her going to that guy to ask for explanations, not only because it wasn't the right way to do things on land but also because it could put both of them in danger. But Ondina was her friend, she didn't deserve to be lied to by her. Lies had caused enough problems in the past; the least she could do was learn from both hers and others' mistakes.

She pointed on the general direction the visitors' group had done.

"Did you see that guy who just went over there with the visitors?"

Ondina tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and looked where Mimmi was pointing. "Yes. Why? What did he do to you?"

Mimmi hummed as she thought about the best way to explain it.

"He looked at me in a weird way," she finally settled on.

"Weird how?" Ondina asked.

Mimmi tried to come up with the right words, but nothing appropriate seemed to be coming to her mind.

"I'm not sure how to say it," she finally settled on. "It seemed like I made him think about something. It was almost like he knew who I am… or even what I am."

Fear flickered in Ondina's eyes.

"Have you seen him before?" she asked, her voice strangled as if she was holding back a shout.

"I don't remember. As far as I know, today is the first day I see him." Mimmi looked again toward where he had gone. "But I just…"

Mimmi trailed off. Anything she could say from now on would be repeating herself, and Ondina had no problem understanding.

"Are you sure that's it?" she asked. "Are you sure he didn't just fancy you?"

Mimmi narrowed her eyes at her friend. Although the days when Ondina was trying to impose her opinions were becoming less frequent, it still happened.

"I'm just trying to be optimistic," she appeased. "If he did know what you were, he likely would have done something about it. The only way I can see for him not to do it is if he is a merman, but mermen can't be plentiful enough for another one to show up only two months after the previous one left. If they were, they wouldn't be able to keep their secret."

Ondina had a few points, but she hadn't seen the way he looked at Mimmi. She just had a feeling he knew she was a mermaid. But her feelings, like everyone else's, could be wrong. And if he did know that, he hadn't done anything about it yet. Whether it was because he was a merman himself (as unlikely as that seemed) or for some other reason Mimmi didn't know, and learning the answer without taking considerable risks wouldn't be easy. The only thing she could do for now was keep paying attention to him, be ready for anything, and if things got worse, talk to the others to see what they thought.

"I agree it's unlikely at best that he's a merman. But I really don't think he looked at me like that because he fancied me. And if that's it, he's out of luck."

Ondina stepped toward her, a concerned look on her face – like it always happened when their conversations took a certain path.

"Are you sure it's wise to put so much hope on Chris?" Mimmi suppressed a prick of annoyance; Ondina had asked this far more times than she cared to count. "I know you've talked…" she paused to recall the right word "...online almost every day since he left, but is that enough to keep a relationship going? Land people can have difficulty with keeping relationships like that. How do you know he won't end things with you sooner or later?"

Mimmi took off her cap and looked Ondina in the eye.

"You've already brought that up a thousand times. My answer didn't change; I'm sure of it. And besides, he's coming back in three days, so it won't be a long distance relationship for much longer."

 _You know that a direct relationship between you and him won't happen without other problems, don't you?_ A stubborn voice at the back of her mind replied.

 _Shut it!_ Mimmi inwardly shouted at it. Its words might be true, but Mimmi knew she liked Chris enough to take the chance.

Ondina's voice broke through her thoughts. "I'm just worried. I don't want you to get hurt."

Mimmi laid a hand on her friend's shoulder. "I know. And I thank you for it. But I believe him and myself. I know I may be wrong, but things only won't go anywhere if either he or I cut them off. None of us did so far."

Again, there were a few seconds of silence.

"I hope it works out," Ondina finally breathed, her gaze lost in the distance.

Mimmi knew without having to ask what she was thinking about.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Ondina stiffened as if to force herself back to reality.

"Not now." Mimmi rubbed a thumb her friend's shoulder. Ondina relaxed at the gesture, but all the same she repeated, "Not now. Now I want to go have lunch before we spend our whole breaks standing here."

Mimmi chuckled as she removed her hand from Ondina's shoulder and the two of them walked toward the park's exit.

* * *

The red-haired mermaid stopped swimming a few feet above a coral outcrop. She looked left, then right, and then raised her right hand like one would do on land to gauge the wind's direction. After a few seconds, she moved her hand to the urn's lid.

But right as she touched it, four blurs appeared out of nowhere and engulfed her. She swung her tail and flailed her arms, but her attempts at defence either missed their mark or only renewed her captors' fierceness.

Below her, the urn fell down to the sea floor, while the smaller sea creatures swam away from the struggle's site, as both the redhead and those she fought with refused to give up on their respective goals.

* * *

"So, are we set on the course?" Lyla asked.

"Yup," Nixie replied.

Evie only nodded.

"Alright then," Lyla carried on. "On your marks…" they all turned on the same direction "… get set…"

A dull splash seemed to come from the left. Evie, who was the closest to the sound, turned toward it, right on time to see a blur of movement rising above the surface.

"What's that?" she asked.

Nixie and Lyla looked at her.

"What?" Nixie inquired.

Another blur of movement surfaced. This time, it looked like a red blur, and was quickly followed by a mermaid's tail.

"That!" Evie shouted as she pointed at it.

"Trouble," Lyla muttered, her eyes narrowed on the same direction.

"We'd better go see what it is," Nixie said.

Agreeing was a redundancy, so all three mermaids went under and moved at super speed toward the blurs. In a matter of seconds, they were there, and Evie could see what was going on.

It seemed that four of the pod's mermaids were surrounding and physically restraining a fifth one she didn't recognize – a pale redhead with waist-length hair who seemed to be a bit younger than Evie. She struggled like mad, but the other four mermaids seemed to have restrained her too well by now, and although she could still move her tail, it did not even get the other four – apparently the redhead now had two mermaids holding each of her arms – to budge.

Although it looked like she was an invader, Evie felt sorry for her. Three of those mermaids, all of them around Evie's age, had been pointed out to her as the pod's equivalent of a female biker gang, the kind of mermaids that pushed the limits, frowned at rules, and pulled stunts far too likely to end in injuries or worse. The fourth, who was fifteen years old, was an impressionable mermaid quite innocent for her age who just would not heed the warnings of those who said the other three weren't the ideal company to be around.

The trapped mermaid seemed to get even more scared when she saw Evie, Nixie and Lyla, and flapped her tail even harder. The other four mermaids grabbed so tight now Evie feared they would break her arms under the pressure.

Beside her, Lyla swam forward and gave the four troublemakers her best glare, the one Nixie and Sirena called her 'shark-repelling glare'. Sure enough, the moment they saw it, the other four mermaids swam to the surface, dragging the other one in tow. Nixie and Lyla followed.

Evie shifted her position to do the same, but as she did, she caught sight of something that didn't belong there.

A dark-blue urn rested atop the same coral outcrop below what seemed to have been the struggle site, its lid still on top of it. Evie instantly knew what it was, and to have its lid on top, she guessed it must not be empty.

She went down to pick it up and then swam to the surface with it, right on time to hear one of the three troublemaking mermaids shouting at the red-haired one.

"Didn't you hear me? I told you to spill it! Or do you want me to use another kind of persuasion?"

The mermaid flinched as much as she could when she had two other mermaids holding her arms. Rather than answering, she looked around as if for an escape route, but the other two mermaids, as well as Nixie and Lyla, were surrounding her. Again, Evie felt sorry for the redhead. She was clearly scared, and the mermaid who had just shouted at her – a tanned mermaid with dark-brown hair and matching eyes named Delmar – was the worst of the troublemaking trio Mimmi had thoroughly described to her, and the undisputed leader of it. Several of the pod's mermaids, Sirena and Aquata included, were wary of her.

"This is the last time I'll say so," Delmar growled. "Spill it!"

"You know we can hear you without you shouting, right?" Lyla drawled.

Delmar glowered at her. "Don't get into this. I'm the one in charge here, so I'm the one interrogating her."

"Sure looks like you're making great progress," Nixie snarked.

Delmar shifted her glower toward her, but Nixie weathered it.

Evie decided to say something before there could be any actual fighting.

"You don't need to interrogate her. I found out what she's going to do."

All the mermaids, the redhead included, turned to look at her. Most of them seemed surprised, but then Lyla and Nixie noticed that she held the urn.

"What is that thing?" Nixie asked.

Evie turned to look at the trapped mermaid.

"Can I explain?" she asked in the gentlest voice she could use.

The redhead looked at her in shock, as if she had considered it was impossible they would treat her with gentleness. Then she looked at her in suspicion, as if she expected it to be some sort of trap.

"Can she explain?" another voice repeated in a tone very similar to Evie's.

Everyone turned to look at the voice's owner. It was one of the four mermaids who had initially caught the redhead; the young one who wasn't part of the trio Mimmi had pointed out to Evie. She was a pale, blond, brown-eyed mermaid a few years younger than the other three, named Triakisa. She had come to Evie a few times for information about land people, and had also thanked Zac personally for destroying the trident stone, and overall seemed nice. But she also admired the troublemaking trio and had a huge tendeny to follow them around and join them in their stunts.

Still, her cuteness and gentleness seemed to be enough to win the redhead over; at last, she gave a small nod.

Evie smiled at her in thanks and then turned to the other mermaids.

"This thing is a cremation urn," she explained. "It has nothing dangerous inside."

"What is a cremation urn?" asked the mermaid holding the redhead's right arm – a brown-haired, blue eyed mermaid with wheatish complexion named Erignatha.

Evie took her time to think about the answer. She knew the facts she had to explain, but she wasn't sure of the right way to explain them. She still had no idea of a lot of things about mermaid culture, one of them being their rituals in regards to death, and what sort of things they found unacceptable in regards to funerals. Even some humans were uncomfortable with cremations, so who knew how mermaids might feel about them.

But at this point, lying was not an option, and even if it was, Evie had never been a good liar. Just keeping the secret from her dad was hard enough.

"On land, when people die, there are ceremonies we hold called funerals," Evie explained.

Delmar looked like she was going to say something, but Lyla beat her to it, "We know what funerals are; mermaids also have them."

Well, that saved some things she had to explain.

Evie carried on, "Sometimes, in land people's funerals, the body is buried. Other times, it is cremated, which means it is burned until it turns into ash."

Other than the redhead, all the mermaids seemed confused, even Nixie and Lyla. But Evie sighed in relief at seeing none of them seemed outright disgusted or outraged.

"Why do they do that?" asked the mermaid holding the redhead's left arm, a dark-skinned brunette with brown eyes named Galeusa.

"I don't know the exact history behind it. It changes a lot depending from the place a land person is from." Delmar again seemed ready to make a biting reply, but this time Evie cut her off herself. "Anyway, after the cremation, the ashes are collected and put in an urn like this one. The deceased person's family sometimes keeps it, but other times they spread the ashes on a place picked by the one who was cremated."

Looks of shame started to come onto Erignatha's and Galeusa's faces. They loosened their grips on the redhead's arms, and she pulled them free without either making an attempt to resist. Triakisa lowered her head, while Lyla and Nixie looked sympathetically at the redhead.

Delmar, however, said instead, "That doesn't make any sense."

"Why not?" Evie asked.

Delmar raised her chin. "That ritual you mention is a land person ritual. This mermaid has a moon ring, so she's not a land girl," she decreed.

"It was my mother's," the redhead replied, speaking for the first time. Evie noticed she had an Irish accent.

Delmar turned toward her now. "So you speak, do you? Then tell me, why would your mother have a moon ring? If she was a mermaid, why wasn't she with her pod, and why would she have a land person's funeral? And if you're lying about this, where did you get the moon ring after all? Not that I can trust you to be honest about it either, but just what other lies do you have for us?"

The redhead opened and closed her mouth several times, but no word would come. Evie could sense Delmar's haughtiness even without looking at her and knew she was just about ready to throw another wave of accusations.

Enough was enough.

"I'm sure she's not lying about anything," Evie said. "There's no reason for the ring not to have been her mother's, or for this to have anything other than ashes."

Delmar insisted, "You know that if she's lying we could all end up in trouble, don't you?"

Evie narrowed her eyes. "Is hypocrisy acceptable amongst mermaids? Because I never knew you to be opposed to chaos."

Delmar let out a mute gasp, her eyes wide in shock, if not downright outrage. Her two cohorts and Triakisa looked like they were about to gape at Evie for daring to stand up for the invader, and against Delmar of all mermaids.

"You know that if you turn out to be wrong, the mermaid council will have your head, don't you?" Delmar asked.

Evie's eyes remained narrowed. "If I turn out to be wrong, I'll accept responsibility for anything that happens." She looked in turn at each of the four mermaids who had grabbed the redhead. "So if you could please leave me and her alone..."

Delmar scoffed. "A land girl ordering us around? Well that is new."

"You heard her," Nixie said. "Get going. You and your friends are meant to be on patrol anyway, remember?"

Delmar glared at her, but instantly recoiled after the glare Lyla threw her from beside Nixie. Then, she turned to the other mermaids and jerked her head to the right and downwards. Then she dove, and Galeusa and Erignatha went after her. Triakisa stayed behind, and raised her head slightly to look at the red-haired mermaid.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Then she also went under.

"We'll keep an eye on them," Lyla said. "Just in case."

Evie nodded and smiled. "Thanks."

The corners of Lyla's lips turned upwards in a half-smile, and then she and Nixie followed the other mermaids underwater.

With her and the redhead alone, Evie swam toward her and handed over the urn. The girl took it in her hands as if her life depended on it.

"I'm sorry about that," Evie said. "Delmar and her little group aren't always the easiest mermaids to deal with."

The mermaid said nothing.

Realizing they had skipped an important step, Evie reached her hand out for a handshake.

"I'm Evie. What's your name?"

The redhead stared at her hand as if it was a venomous snake that would bite her if handled improperly. Then, she clutched the urn to her chest with one arm and accepted Evie's shake with her other hand. Evie saw bruises on the spots where her arm had been grabbed. Delmar and her friends hadn't been tame at all.

"I'm Alana," the redhead replied.

"Nice to meet you, Alana."

It was probably better for Evie to refrain from saying that she had noticed the shared name with one of Ariel's sisters from the Disney movie – and for that matter, from remarking how much Alana looked like Ariel herself. But was the name a coincidence? If Alana's mother had had a moon ring, she almost certainly had been a mermaid, or at least a woman turned into a mermaid, as according to what Evie knew humans couldn't wear moon rings without serious risks involved. If Alana wasn't a common mermaid name by itself, it might have been inspired by the Disney movie. Although with that theory as a basis, it was almost a mystery that the Alana before her wasn't named Ariel instead.

Evie tried to think of what else she could ask, but no safe subject came to her, and Alana didn't seem too interested in speaking either. Evie knew she could just leave her alone, but she didn't feel comfortable leaving Alana to herself when she could have to clear things up with more members of the pod, or when Delmar and her friends might escape Nixie's and Lyla's watch and return for a second round of conflict.

"May I ask whose ashes are those?" Evie eventually asked after she felt the the silence lasted for too long.

Alana looked down.

"My mother's," she whispered.

A hand seemed to squeeze at Evie's heart. All the sympathy she had already felt for the girl rose to new heights. She had also lost her mother, and though it had been years ago, Evie still remembered how painful it had been. She inched forward with the intention to hug Alana, but then pulled back. The redhead most likely wouldn't respond well to physical contact with a stranger after being attacked so violently.

"Do you want me to go away?" she asked.

Hints of fear started coming to Alana's face. Evie guessed it had to do with being left alone to the mercy of more mermaids that came to attack her. Or maybe she somehow didn't feel she could do this on her own.

"I have no problem staying either," Evie added. "It's your choice."

Alana clutched the urn to her chest as she thought. Evie said nothing as she kept the calmest face she could, just so Alana wouldn't think of any shift in her expression as an attempt at pressuring her to say anything.

Finally, she looked back up and mumbled, "Then please stay."

Evie smiled and nodded. Alana gave a shy smile in return, and then went under still with the urn in her arms.

Evie dove after her, and saw her stopping above the same coral outcrop the urn had landed on. She had her hand on the urn's lid, but it was shaking, as if she couldn't summon the effort to actually open the urn.

Though Evie's instincts warned her it could be a bad idea, she swam forward and put her hand on Alana's back. She flinched at first, but after she turned around and saw Evie, she relaxed.

Evie wished she could say something comforting to her, but unlike in the movies, mermaids couldn't talk underwater. So she settled for rubbing her hand along Alana's back, and hoped the gesture conveyed at least half the comfort she wished she could transmit.

Again, Alana took her hand to the lid, and closed her eyes as if praying for strength to raise it. Then, she pulled it off, and the urn's contents drifted away, carried by the water. The urn itself fell down to the bottom of the sea, as Alana closed her eyes to repress tears that wouldn't be evident underwater anyway, and Evie kept rubbing her back in comfort.

* * *

At the exact same time, but on the other side of planet according to standard maps, the almost full moon, surrounded by a myriad of stars, shone over a small island off the coast of San Diego. At first glance, it was a plain, unremarkable location, an expanse of black bare rock with only three hectares of total area, two cliffs rising from its eastern and western ends, and a jagged, uneven ground. A vertical tunnel similar to a volcanic tube went down from the western cliff, but few knew about it, as it could only be seen from above. It was easy enough for boats to arrive, but not many did, as there was nothing commonly perceived as worth seeing. The only thing that might draw attention were the sea birds that nested on the cliffs' faces, but all of them were of species that could be watched on other places not only of easier access but easier on the eyes. And at night, with the birds perched and asleep and too much darkness for photographs, that minor attractive point was rendered moot. And when the wind blew through the gaps between the rocks, it had a tendency to cause a spooky whistle that locals said seemed made by a ghost.

All in all, not many had had problems seeing why the place had earned the name 'Grim Island'.

However, if one went down the vertical tunnel at that exact same time – an impossible feat for all but highly skilled alpinists – they would meet a sight most humans had never seen.

A mermaid, floating on her back in a circular pool about five meters wide, looking at the stars she could see through the hole about fifty meters above the water.

Anyone who knew about her kind would identify her as similar to mermaids in the rest of the world. Her scales were a golden-orange like those from mermaids all around the world, and the skin of her human-looking parts was pale, to the point it almost glowed in the moonlight. Her eyes were blue, and her mid-back length hair was blond. And like many mermaids throughout the world, she had a moon ring on her right hand's index finger. If she was amongst a pod, nothing visible would identify her as remarkable.

The same could be said for the second mermaid, who arrived after the first had been floating in the pool for about an hour, coming in through an underwater tunnel. But she also looked quite different from the first one. Her eyes were blue as well, and her hair was of the same-length as that of the first one, but it was brown, and her skin was tanned rather than pale.

Remarkable or not, the second mermaid's arrival caused the first one to move into a vertical position and look eagerly at the other one.

"Did you find it, Sedna?" the blond mermaid demanded.

The other mermaid raised her right hand, her own moon ring almost hidden by a frayed dark-green seaweed. "Is it this, Hydrurga?"

Hydrurga pushed herself forward with a swish of her tail, took the seaweed in her left hand, and raised her right one as she clenched it into a fist. The stone in her moon ring started to glow, enabling her to get a better look at the seaweed. Sedna looked at her with wide eyes, barely blinking.

After a few seconds, Hydrurga's features burst into a smile.

"Yes, it's this." She looked behind, toward a ledge about the size of her head that rose about four inches from the water. "Now all we have to do is add it to the other ingredients, and tomorrow night, the land boy Nerissa's daughter fancies will belong to us."

* * *

 **So, this was the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. For those interested, I fancast the original characters seen in this chapter, as well as those who will feature in following ones, so if you'd like to see who I envision as who, please read the following notes. To avoid doubts as to whom I'm referring to, I am including at least one character played by the same actor or actress in the fancast in a.**

 **Alana - Evanna Lynch (who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies, though I imagine Alana as Evanna Lynch looks in the pictures of her with red hair, not as she looks as Luna Lovegood)**

 **The boy that makes Mimmi suspicious - Hutch Dano (who played Zeke in _Zeke & Luther_, although the character I imagine him as has a hair color and a hair cut different from Zeke's) **

**Delmar - Sofia Carson (who, coincidentally, played another Evie in the Disney Channel Movie _Descendants_ )**

 **Triakisa - Abby Ross (who played the teenaged Emma Swan in _Once Upon A Time_ )**

 **Erignatha - Alyson Stoner (who played Caitlyn Gellar in the _Camp Rock_ film series and Camille Gage in the 'Step Up' film series)**

 **Galeusa - Paige Hurd (who played Tasha in _Everybody Hates Chris_ ) **

**Sedna - Ashley Leggat (who played Casey McDonald in _Life With Derek_ )**

 **Hydrurga - Georgina Haig (who played Queen Elsa in _Once Upon A Time_ and Zamira in the second season of _The Elephant Princess_ , which, as a bit of trivia, is also from Jonathan M. Shiff Productions)**

 **I don't know when I'll update next, but I'll try not to take too long. Until then!**


	2. Chapter 2: Fast Friends

**My apologies in regards to this chapter. I didn't plan for it to be so big when I started writing it, but it got a bit out of hand and grew rather long, not to mention certain plot related issues showed up and took things in a direction a bit different than I initially thought. As a result, certain elements I had hoped would be featured in here will have to wait at least until next chapter.**

 **All the same, I hope you enjoy the final result.**

 **In regards to something that will show up in this chapter, please note I know very little about both the workings of moving to another country and about Australian foster care. I tried to do some research, but it was less helpful than I would have wished, so I hope you forgive me for the copious amounts of artistic license I may be taking. If anyone wishes to correct me on anything, please don't be afraid to do so.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2 – Fast Friends**

After all the ashes had been carried away by the water, Alana dropped the urn and its lid onto the sea bed, and she and Evie swam back to the surface. With their heads above water, Evie could now hear Alana sniffling, and it only took a few moments before a drop that definitely wasn't sea water started flowing from her left eye. She moved her right hand from Alana's back so she could put an arm over Alana's shoulders and used her left one to wipe the tear from the redhead's face as comfortingly as possible.

Alana kept sniffling, and more tears started flowing down her face, now too many for Evie to wipe them away without bothering her. She tried to pull Alana closer for a hug, but the redhead immediately removed herself from Evie's arm and got away with a stroke from her arms. Evie got the message.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice muffled by the urge to sniffle. "I'll get myself together."

Evie approached Alana with a movement from her tail. She wouldn't try another hug, at least for now, but she reached through the water and held Alana's hand.

"It's alright," Evie said. "If you want to cry, cry. It helps." A familiar unpleasant weight started to settle in her chest at what she was about to say. Even now, it always did when she talked about this subject. "I lost my mother when I was eight. I know what you're going through."

Sympathy burst through Alana's features. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but time and again she closed it without saying anything, as if she was trying to think of something to say to that, but nothing would come to her.

"I'm so sorry to know that," she finally whispered.

Tears started to flow out of Alana's eyes again, as if learning about Evie's mother had brought them back forward. On impulse, Evie swam forward and hugged Alana. For just the tiniest of moments, the redhead stiffened, but then, like a card castle under an unexpected impact, she wrapped her arms around Evie and burst into sobs, her head on Evie's shoulder. Evie ran her fingers through Alana's hair and hummed soothingly into the redhead's ear, once more hoping that the physical contact would be enough to convey at least part of the sympathy and comfort she wanted to give.

* * *

Hidden behind a coral outcrop that matched her tanned skin well enough for her to go unnoticed at a first glance, she tried to think about what to do as she watched the unidentified mermaid hug Alana. As far as she could tell from here, the hug seemed genuine, but without listening or even being close enough to see everything, she could be missing a lot of important things. And even if the hug was genuine, she had known Alana for longer, she could probably give more comfort than a random stranger.

Or she couldn't.

After all, she had known Alana for over three months and had never shared her secret. If she showed up now the poor girl might have a heart attack at seeing her.

And even if Alana accepted what she was without a flinch, she had been forbidden from coming here, much less showing up in front of her in her true form.

She might as well have obeyed, given how at a loss she had been when the other four mermaids started attacking Alana. As much as she had wanted to do anything to help, her confusion and fear had left her hovering on her spot, unable to do anything but watch.

Perhaps there had been more truth to the stories she heard about her kind than she would have liked to think.

In the end, she had been thankful beyond measure when those three mermaids had stopped the nasty quartet, and before anything serious could happen to Alana as far as she could tell. And now one of them was comforting her, which could only be good.

Still, as much as she knew that she was doing nothing here, and that Alana seemed to be well, she remained where she was, although she had no idea why.

* * *

Evie didn't care to measure how long she spent holding Alana. All she knew was that she held the younger mermaid in her arms and hummed soothingly as she caressed her hair, while the redhead shed what had to be days' worth of tears on her shoulder.

Evie remembered crying a lot when her mother had died, but she didn't think she had cried so much at once. Had Alana cried at all since her mother had died? Had she even had someone to lean on over the last days?

The very thought caused Evie's heart to clench. Losing her mother had been horrible, and taught her far too much about how unfair life could be, but she'd had her father, and the rest of her family, and Zac, and Carly, and all her friends. If she had been alone then, she didn't know what would have happened. Even now that she was older, if something comparable happened and she had no one to support her, she figured she would go insane.

Slowly, the sobs faded into hiccups. Evie didn't stop holding or comforting Alana when that happened, but after hiccupping for a few instants only, the redhead tried to pull back from Evie's arms. Although she had the feeling Alana still needed more hugging and comforting, Evie allowed her to get away. After all, they were still practically strangers, and if she got uncomfortable with Evie, hugs and soothing sounds would be pointless or even bad for her.

Alana sniffled.

"I'm sorry," she managed to say through a stuffy nose. "Here I am pouring my eyes out on a stranger's shoulder."

Evie smiled and rested her hand on Alana's shoulder. "I told you, it's alright."

Alana didn't flinch away this time. "Thank you."

Evie gave Alana's shoulder a tiny squeeze and then removed her hand.

The two of them remained there, keeping themselves at the same spot with impulses from their tails. Evie tried to think of something comforting to say, but having known Alana for less than an hour, it was hard to think of the right words. She didn't even know the circumstances behind Alana's mother's death, and asking about it would stir bad memories. She could suggest that they went for a swim through the reef, but if Alana's mother had wanted her ashes to be spread here, it must be because there was something special about the place, and if Alana started dwelling on those memories right now, she might get even sadder. Evie would never even think Alana should forget about them, but maybe now was too soon. So maybe she should take her for a swim somewhere else. But then again, swimming itself might bring Alana memories of swimming with her mother.

It might be better to take Alana to do something on land. Perhaps they could go to the marine park, or on a walk, or go eat somewhere, or go window shopping. She couldn't think of anything on land that would be comparable to the sights the sea had to offer, but it should be easier to get Alana to think about something other than her mother there.

Trying to sound casual, Evie said, "You know, I was about to go have lunch somewhere. Do you want to come with me? My treat."

Alana's eyes narrowed, as if she was finding it confusing, if not downright suspicious, that a mermaid would say something like that.

"What sort of lunch?" she finally asked.

"I was thinking of a human lunch," Evie clarified. "Go to a café or a restaurant and order a meal." Alana seemed about to gape now. A flicker of fear rose within her; she'd never shared this fact with a 'new mermaid'. All the others she had met knew the truth about her from the beginning.

She took a deep breath, and then explained, "I'm a land girl. I only turned into a mermaid when I fell into a moon pool about six months ago."

A glow of understanding flashed in Alana's eyes. "So that's how you knew what the urn was."

It might be just Evie, but it seemed that the redhead's posture relaxed after learning Evie was a land girl. "Yes," she confirmed. "That's how I knew what the urn was, and that's why offering land food is my first choice. But if you want, I can catch food and make it the mermaid way. I'm far from the best in the pod, but at this point, if I had to survive on the sea, I could manage."

Evie chuckled bashfully, and Alana let out an amused giggle. But then her eyes trained on Evie's right hand, and narrowed in suspicion once more. "If you're a land girl, why do you have a moon ring?"

Evie tried to think of the humblest and least scary way to explain the truth. "The pod's leader gave it to me when I was accepted as an honorary member." She grinned bashfully. "I still can't use it very well, though."

Alana's suspicion vanished, and she gave Evie a comforting smile. "Rest assured, you're already better at it than me. I don't know how to use mine for anything other than to wear it on my finger."

Her arm shook afterwards, as if she was about to put her to her mouth like people did when they realized they'd spoken too much.

"So, do you want a land lunch or a marine lunch?" Evie asked as if she hadn't noticed the gesture or the strangeness of Alana's words, which caused the redhead to relax.

But Evie did think that it seemed odd for a born mermaid with a moon ring passed on to her by her mother, who just had to be a mermaid as well, to not know how to use a moon ring at all.

After a few seconds, during which Alana seemed to be thinking about what to say, she replied. "I can't impose on you for either. Stopping those four bullies, rubbing my back and giving me a hug was already more than I had the right to ask. A lunch is far too much."

"Really, it's not," Evie said, trying not to sound demanding.

This time, Alana spent even longer without answering.

"I don't know… it just doesn't seem fair," she eventually managed. "I don't have anything to pay you with. As in, really don't have anything to pay you with."

Evie did not reply immediately. What she mean by 'really not have anything to pay you with?' Was she thinking Evie wouldn't believe her for some reason? Or was there something else? They still weren't close enough for Evie to feel she had the right to ask, but she could keep trying to offer her lunch.

"I told you, that's not an issue," Evie said in what she hoped was a good reassuring voice. "I don't mind paying your lunch at all."

Alana blinked a few times, as if she was somehow trying to summon a proper answer with it. Evie had the feeling the redhead wanted to accept the offer. Evie hoped she would. As much as she knew they would have to part ways later today, and that it might even be possible she wouldn't see Alana again, she wanted to be there for her for as long as she could.

"But don't you have anything else to do?" Alana tried to say. "I wouldn't want to get in the way of your plans for the day."

Evie shook her head. "I have the rest of the day free, and I'm glad to spend it with you."

What a relief she had taken the day off. While she had never imagined she would spend like this, she thought it was a better use than any of her initial ideas. But Alana still didn't seem convinced.

"But how do you know I'll even be good company? You may hate being with me. I'm not exactly the best person to be around right now."

Evie reached forward and held Alana's hand.

"I'm willing to take that chance if you are."

Another silence followed, for quite longer than the previous ones. Evie waited as patiently as she could. Part of her wanted to keep insisting, but she was already skirting on the edge of pushiness. As much as she wanted to help Alana feel better, she knew she couldn't force her to come with her. All she could do was hope she would accept.

Eventually, Alana let out a deep sigh.

"Alright, I'll go." The corners of Alana's mouth curled upwards in a small smile as she said that.

Evie tried to act casual rather than let her relief at Alana's acceptance show through.

"Right then. Just wait for me to tell Nixie and Lyla I won't be joining them in their race after all, and then we can go."

Alana nodded in agreement, and Evie then swam away to look for the two mermaids.

* * *

It was difficult to be sure from where she was, but it seemed that the other mermaid had gone away while Alana remained there. If she wanted to tell everything, she needed to do so now, in case the other mermaid returned or others as nasty as the initial four showed up.

But the same old dilemma kept presenting itself. Would telling Alana the truth really be the right thing to do now, when she could have done so over three months ago, after she first figured out Alana's secret? She might go through a whole range of reactions, many of them potentially unpleasant. And again, she had been forbidden from telling Alana the truth. But she had also been taught that honesty was the best policy.

So she again remained where she was, keeping her blue eyes trained on Alana and keeping herself on the same spot with impulses from her tail while she tried to come to a decision.

* * *

 _This is a mistake,_ Alana thought as she floated at the spot where Evie had left her before she went to talk to the two mermaids she had mentioned.

She shouldn't have accepted Evie's invitation for lunch, especially one that would be paid for rather than caught in the sea. She shouldn't have accepted anything from Evie, from her offer to stay with her to the hug. But Evie had come across as so gentle and warm, and Alana had wanted a hug like that so badly over the last week, that when Evie hugged her, she had just broken down. And when she had offered her lunch invitation, though Alana had wanted to refuse, her loneliness and sadness had won over her attempts to do so in the end. Somehow, being with someone who had gone through the same thing as her and was being understanding and sympathetic rather than beating her or taunting her made her feel better in some way, and Alana didn't want it to end so soon.

Still, she would have to put an end to it, for her own safety. If she and Evie continued to meet, whether here or anywhere else, she would be in danger, and sooner or later, she would be killed. Not that Evie was a problem. As kind, caring and earnest as she was – due to being a land girl turned into a mermaid rather than a born mermaid, Alana couldn't help but to think – she still wouldn't be able to do anything if this mermaid pod found her secret. If they found out that she was a mermaid of a kind whose existence was not tolerated by mermaid laws, far more inconceivable than a land girl falling into a moon pool. From today on, she had to avoid Mako as much as possible and do her best not to run into Evie – or any of those other mermaids – anywhere else.

She knew she could just leave now and stand Evie up. Evie would have no way to find her, because as nasty as mermaids could be, they weren't sharks. They wouldn't be able to sniff a trail or taste it in the water, and once the bubbles she made dispelled they wouldn't be able to see where she had gone. But the weak part of Alana, the part that wanted companionship and longed for someone who didn't interact with her out of duty or because they wanted to hurt her, wanted at least some sort of break from the aching loneliness that hadn't left her since her mother had died. So she waited for Evie to come back, and even found herself looking forward to her companionship.

And before she knew it, Evie was surfacing again in front of her.

"I'm done," she reported. When Alana said nothing, Evie went on, "Do you have any place in mind to have lunch?"

Alana thought for a bit. She was far from the ideal person to ask such a thing to. She hadn't been in the Gold Coast for long, and she hadn't been able to go out for leisure a lot since then, and most of her outings had been underwater rather than on land. But there was a place that had come to her mind, one where she'd had lunch a few times, and which she had enjoyed enough to want to go back there.

"I do," she replied.

Evie gestured toward where Alana knew land was. "Then lead the way."

Alana dove with a tail slap on the surface, gave a look at Evie to make sure she was behind her, and then shot off toward shore, the other mermaid keeping up with her.

* * *

Having shifted her position so that the other two mermaids wouldn't see her as they sped off, she watched the remnants of their trails dissolving into the water.

It was the price to pay for having taken so long to come to a decision. The other mermaid had returned before she could do anything and gone off with Alana toward land. While she could easily follow them undetected in the water, it would be more difficult to follow them on land without being spotted. She knew how to use invisibility, but there was always the danger of anyone crashing into her, especially if Alana and the other mermaid went to a busy place.

It might be better to let it go. After all, she had gotten what she wanted. She wanted to see if Alana would be alright. From what she had seen of her interactions with this mermaid, it seemed that would be true, at least for the time being. There was nothing else she could do for now.

But once more, she couldn't help the feeling of loss that came from knowing she could have finally had a friend who was also a mermaid and had wasted her chance just because her family had told her to.

 _Oh well, I can always try to change their opinions once more._ She thought.

The idea cheering her up a bit, she turned toward land herself and, after making sure no mermaid was around to see her, started swimming away from Mako Island just as fast as Alana and the mermaid she had swam off with had done.

* * *

Their swim ashore ended when they reached a calm deserted beach, full of rocks tall enough to hide them while they dried themselves with their heating powers. Once they were back to their human forms, Evie could see that Alana was wearing a light blue t-shirt that went with her eyes, pale yellow shorts, and white flip-flops; Evie herself was wearing her white t-shirt with yellow sleeves, a short skirt, and black strappy sandals. As open footwear could easily get full of sand, both of them took it off and went barefoot toward a fairly low stairway that lead out of the beach.

"Is that café you mentioned too far?" Evie asked as they sat down on a rock to shake the sand off their feet and put their shoes on before climbing the stairs.

Alana, who had a much easier time sliding into her flip-flops than Evie did with strapping her sandals, replied, "Not really. If we walk on that direction…" she pointed on the general direction behind Evie "… for a… short while, we'll get there."

Something clicked in Evie's mind at those words. While a 'short while' was vague, she knew one café in that general direction, not too far from here. It was the same one where her cousin Suzie had worked for a while, before the then new manager had fired her because she got one order wrong. Evie still remembered Suzie going on and on about it when they talked for the first time after she was fired – and also remembered the twist of poetic justice when, months later, the café almost went under, partly because the manager who fired Suzie apparently was not that good at her job herself. Last time Evie had heard of the place, it had been rescued by sheer miracle, apparently thanks to a bank loan that by all means should have been impossible to get, its owner taking some lessons in management, and sheer dumb luck. But that had been years ago. For all she knew, the place had gone bankrupt again since then and been replaced by something else.

"Something wrong?"

Alana's voice took Evie away from her musings.

"No, not at all. I was only thinking I might know the place you're talking about."

Alana gave her another of her small smiles. "Well, you probably know just about everything in here better than me. I've only been here for a little over three months, besides a short visit when I was seven."

Evie finished strapping her right sandal and moved to the left one. "If it makes you feel better, I'm sure I'd be even worse if I went to wherever you're from, as I don't think I've ever been there."

"I'm from Lahinch," Alana supplied. Reading the question in Evie's face, she added, "It's at County Clare, in Ireland."

Evie had no idea where that was, but she knew such a thing only proved her point.

"I'd definitely be even worse off then. I never went to Ireland." She finished strapping her sandal, but both she and Alana remained seated. "The closest places I've been to are England and Scotland, and I've never been to either more than once." She chuckled, remembering a certain peculiar episode of that trip. "We weren't even meant to go to Scotland, but my father took me there after I begged him to." Hoping it would make Alana laugh, she added the reason for said detour, "All because I wanted to see the Loch Ness monster."

Her hopes came true; Alana laughed a very clear laugh at the end of the explanation.

"Did you manage to?" The redhead asked when she stopped laughing.

"In my defence, I was nine," Evie pointed out with a mock-annoyed look. But Alana kept muffling laughter, and soon Evie chuckled herself. "But let's just say I thought it would be much easier than it turned out to be."

She then stood up from the rock, and Alana did the same. As they walked up the stairs, Evie added, "But now that I mention it, I actually think it might not be so impossible. After all, mermaids shouldn't exist either according to what all humans say, and yet here we are."

Alana nodded. "Point taken. Although at the same time, the ocean is much bigger than the Loch Ness. It's far easier to hide several human-sized mermaids in it than to hide a population of supposedly big monsters in a comparatively small lake." Alana smoothed down her shirt and carried on, "But then again, I never went there to look."

They reached the end of the stairs, and started moving along a path paved with concrete blocks that lead along the sea.

"Well, let's just hope the ocean isn't hiding anything particularly big and nasty, or next thing we know, we'll have to face a Kraken," Evie quipped, which prompted Alana to grin a bit, but this time she didn't chuckle.

"Well, it'd still be easier to hide a population of Krakens in the ocean than to hide a population of big monsters in a lake, even one the size of the Loch Ness," she remarked. "At least as long as the Krakens weren't too big."

Evie smirked. "Point taken," she quipped, doing her best to echo Alana's tone. Once more, the redhead grinned.

Then, in her normal voice, Evie added. "But I promise, if you want to see anything here on the Gold Coast, I'll take you there. I can't promise I know what's under the water as well as I should, but I know the land part well enough after living here all my life."

Alana smiled a bit. "And if you ever go to Lahinch, I promise I'll show you around as well." She then started rubbing her hands together, interlacing her fingers and then pulling them free time and again, as her gaze lost itself in the distance. "Though right now, I just hope I'll be able to go back there myself."

Concern flickered within Evie.

"Is there any reason you shouldn't?"

In spite of her attempts to keep her voice normal, her concern made it much more subdued. Alana kept interlacing her fingers and rubbing her hands.

"At this point, I don't know. I wasn't meant to be here as long as I ended up staying, and I don't know what someone like me would need to do to go home."

Evie's heart gave a small jump inside her chest, but she held back the worried question. She had the feeling that this time, Alana would tell everything herself.

After another of her moments of silence, the redhead started speaking.

"I only came to the Gold Coast because my mother was given an offer to enter an experimental cancer treatment program, conducted by a supposedly really good researcher."

Evie suppressed a gasp. This was one thing she hadn't been counting on: that she and Alana lost their mothers in exactly the same way, albeit at different points in their lives.

"All the travelling and living expenses were covered, and the treatment itself also was, so…" Alana trailed off, but there was no need to finish.

It did seem a bit strange for a doctor to cover so much of a patient's expenses, but for all Evie knew, he might just be rich and kind-hearted enough to spend his money for good things.

"What is that doctor's name?" Evie asked.

"Colbert Thomas," Alana replied.

Something clicked in Evie's head at that name. Doctor Blakely had mentioned it once or twice, and she had read it in a few scientific magazines. She couldn't remember any specific details, but he should be reasonably important in his field to show up like that.

"And you say he actually covered all expenses?" Evie insisted.

Alana tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Yes, he paid for everything. The plane, the rent, the food… It did seem odd at the time, but I checked, and he apparently does it for everyone who tries his treatment methods, whether they come from China, from South Africa, from Alaska…"

Well, if he did that for everyone he treated, he must be simply kind enough to cover his patients' expenses. Evie didn't think she had heard of someone like that before, but it didn't seem like something that should be forbidden. The money was his, he had the right to spend it, he was putting good use to it, and if he was spending money earned through illegal means he would have already been caught for sure, given how such a thing would draw attention to himself.

Evie refocused on Alana's conversation when she heard her continue speaking.

"Either way, he did it with us as well. But because we didn't know how long we would be staying here, the move here was handled as if it would be permanent." Alana sighed as if she was in pain. "So now I'm here to stay, and in your government's hands at that."

Evie suppressed a wince. She had never ended up in such a position, but she was familiar enough with those things to know it wasn't a pleasant place to be in, if nothing else because those who ended up there were, from a legal point of view, alone in the world.

"Didn't that doctor do anything to help it?" Evie insisted. For someone so apparently kind and thorough, he either had made a big mistake or had one huge ulterior motive.

"He took care of me until the funeral, and handled the funeral as well, but legally, he doesn't have any right to have anything to do with me. So off to the foster system I went."

Evie suppressed another wince.

"Looking back on it, there probably was a lot of paperwork I could have signed that would have allowed me to be sent back to Ireland, back when we were still in the process of coming here," Alana carried on. "But back then I just…"

Alana slowed to a stop. Evie could see her eyes starting to glisten, and her hands frozen in the same spot, right in front of her navel with their fingers interlaced. Evie thought back on her mother's final days, and how she had felt back then. All her thoughts had been focused on how much she wanted her mother to get better, and she had spent day after day looking for anything that might help her. She had sung to her, read to her, hugged her, begged her to get better, anything at all if it meant her mother would be healed. Although she had only been half Alana's age, she imagined that even now, if she had to go through something as complex as getting anyone into an experimental treatment program in another country, she'd leave out half of the important paperwork, and potentially get in trouble down the line because of that.

Evie reached toward Alana and rested a hand on both of hers'.

"I understand," she whispered.

Alana sniffled, tears again running out of her eyes.

"The worst part is, at one point, I really thought it would work. When my mother entered that program, she already didn't have more than a few weeks left according to just about every doctor we talked to. But two whole months went by after she started the treatment." A sob paused her speech. "And for a whole month after that, she even started slowly getting better. But then, a week ago, when I went to say good morning, she just… she just was…"

Another sob followed. Evie's heart started to grow heavier. If she had to guess, this was even worse than what had happened with her mother. It had been hard enough to watch her get steadily worse; she couldn't imagine what it would have been to have watched her get better and then lose her.

Once more, Evie hugged Alana; this time, she instantly hugged her back, and again started crying into Evie's shoulder. This wave of sobs lasted for less than the one off the coast of Mako Island, but as they were on land, there were others to see, and they drew the attention of a few passers-by. Some looked at them sympathetically, others made their best to make it seem they weren't looking at all, and others yet looked at them as if they were crazy; those, Evie warded off with her best glare in less time than they could say 'dive'.

When they parted, Alana's face was full of tear streaks and the shoulder of Evie's t-shirt was soaked; this time around, there was a reason to be thankful tears didn't bring mermaid transformations forth.

"I'm sorry," Alana sobbed. "I know I have no business dumping this on you, but it seems I can't help it."

Evie gave Alana a gentle smile. "You don't need to apologize. Like I said, crying helps. And I know we haven't met for long, but we're friends, aren't we?"

Alana's eyes seemed to double in size, as if the idea had been inconceivable to her.

Had she even had a friend before?

 _Well, she does now._ Evie thought. _If she accepts me, at least._

"Yes, we are friends," Alana finally said.

Evie again held Alana's hand. "And friends are there for the good and bad moments, aren't they?"

Alana thought for a bit. "That's what I heard. But I've already made you be here for far more than I had the right to. And besides, I shouldn't even be crying so much to begin with."

Evie held Alana's hand more tightly for a moment. "You feel however you're feeling. And it's natural to be sad. She was your mother, you loved her, and it's only been a week. There might be cause for concern if you are still like this in a year, but it's perfectly fine for you to be like this now."

Alana remained silent; either she wanted to stop talking about this or she didn't know what to say. Evie waited for her to decide where to go next. After a few moments, she kept going on the same direction they had been taking, but, subconsciously or not, she kept holding Evie's hand. Evie allowed her to do so.

After a minute or so, around the time they moved from the path of concrete to a stretch of grass that extended along the water, Alana tried to pull her hand free. Evie let her, and they again walked side by side, in silence this time around while Alana wiped the marks of her tears off as well as she could with her hands. Evie wished she had brought a handkerchief, but she had stopped carrying a purse after she became a mermaid, and her pockets weren't particularly spacious. The serviettes at the café would have to do, once they got there at least.

Shortly after Alana pulled her hand free, Evie started watching a familiar building grow in the distance. Although she had only been here a few times, and the last had been years ago, around the time Suzie was fired, it still was pretty much the same. The pointy roof looked just like she remembered, there were still outside tables with chairs and couches, and there was still a small pier not far from its entrance – very convenient if either she or Alana had a sudden transformation into mermaids and needed to rush to the water, Evie couldn't help but to think. And when they approached enough to read the neon sign over its door, Evie saw that it still had the same name: _Rikki's_.

"Is that it?" she asked Alana.

"It is," the redhead replied.

There was no need to reply to such a comment, but as if nature or fate had decided to provide them with a light hearted moment, Alana's stomach chose that exact time to utter a growl, low enough that no one seating at the outside tables raised their head, but loud enough for Evie to listen. The redhead blushed – very noticeably given her pale complexion – and Evie chuckled.

"And we arrived right on time, it seems," she joked.

Alana's blush deepened, but she chuckled herself. Before either could say anything else, Evie's stomach also growled, which prompted a burst of louder chuckles from both of them as they went in and picked a table.

* * *

One of the good things about being able to switch forms with magic was that everything about her human form seemed to come back to place the moment she left her mermaid one. Her clothes would be impeccable, her hairstyles would reassemble themselves, and her keys, money, and cell phone would be in her pockets in a condition as good as if they had never been exposed to water, even they always ended up in that state for at least some seconds, before she entered her transformation into mermaid.

So, it was with no problem at all that, after taking a large detour through the sea to make sure no one from the pod was following her and then going home through a very twisted path for further safety, she took her keys out of her pocket (carrying them there was a necessity, as purses weren't taken away or restored by shifts between forms) and opened the front door. The amount of turns she had to give to the key meant the door was locked, which she knew meant no one was home. As such, she closed the door without any concern, and, after crossing the vestibule, went upstairs to her room.

But after walking only five steps, she froze at the sound of a very stern and very angry male voice.

"Welcome back, young lady."

Her heart pounding in her ears and her tongue bunched into a ball in her throat, she turned toward the source of the sound. And the moment she saw it, all her fear gave way to annoyance. Rather than her father standing in front of the couch with his arms folded and a very angry look on his face, it was her brother, also standing in front of the couch, but with his hands clenched into fists and jammed onto his hips in a macho posture reminiscent of a bodybuilder's and with a teasing look on his face.

"Where have you been until this time?" he said in the same mock-stern voice he had used to make it seem he was their father at first.

Her fists clenched, she stomped down the stairs and then over to him, her wavy elbow-length black hair trailing behind her like a cape. As soon as she got to him, she reached up and clobbered his upper arm.

"Don't do that, Praveer! You almost made me jump out of my scales!"

Although they were of approximately the same height, almost at 180 cm each, he was brawnier than her to the point he almost didn't feel her hit, but he still rubbed the spot with a mock-pained expression. But now that she had vented her frustration, she glanced at the spot she'd hit to make sure she hadn't done any harm.

If she had, it was nothing that could be seen, but given that Praveer, like her, had gotten their mother's tanned skin, bruises weren't easily visible, at least if they were slight.

His act lasted only a few seconds before he teased with a grin, his brown eyes twinkling, "How could I have done that? You know you're on legs right now, don't you, Neelam?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Instead of cracking jokes, answer the proper questions. Where are Mom and Dad? Do they know where I went? Are they mad if they do?"

Her brother's look grew into a more serious one. "Don't worry, I covered for you. I said I didn't know where you were, and suggested you had just gone out for a walk. I don't know how much they believed me, but Mom's at work, and Dad said he went to collect samples, so if they didn't fall for it, they aren't _that_ worried either. Yet."

Neelam sighed in relief, in spite of Praveer's final incisive jab.

"Thanks, bro. You're the best."

He gave a theatrical bow with his arms spread at the waist. "Always happy to be of service."

Again, she rolled her eyes, as he stood up and tucked several strands of neck-length black hair away from his face.

The two of them sat down on the couch, her brother again looking more serious.

"So, did you get to see Alana like you wanted to, or did I have to lie for nothing?"

"I did," Neelam replied. "It wasn't easy to find her, but I did."

Praveer clicked his tongue. "I bet it wasn't easy," he deadpanned. "How is she?" he added in a concerned tone.

Neelam thought for a bit about what to say. She didn't want her brother to know what kind of trouble she had almost ended up in – not after she had promised she wouldn't get into any trouble when he accepted to cover for her if he had to – but both her parents had taught her not to lie, and both them and Praveer always seemed to know when she did anyway.

"She seemed to be well when I last saw her," she said airily. "She even made a new friend."

"A scaly friend or a human friend?" Praveer questioned.

Neelam tried not to grumble. Praveer being the perceptive sort had seldom done any good when they were younger, and it tended to be the same way now. She knew it was useful to be like that - his perceptiveness had even be useful to her on occasions - but she still didn't particularly like being on the receiving end of it.

"It was another mermaid," she admitted. "The local pod ran into her. A few didn't seem to be welcoming her at all at first, but then they were stopped, one mermaid helped Alana with her mother's ashes, and then the two of them started talking, with a long hug in-between. A while later, the two of them swam away together a while later, so things were going in the right direction."

Her brother tapped his fingers on the back of the couch after she finished. He always tapped his fingers on something when he was thinking of what to say.

"We should be happy for her, then," he said. "She needs a friend after what happened to her mother."

Neelam tried not to scowl. "We could have been her friends. If I had just told her everything, we could have been there for her. We could be there for her right now."

Praveer's eyes narrowed. "You know that Mom and Dad forbade you from telling anything, don't you?"

Neelam sighed in exasperation. "How could I not? You and them repeat that to me at least ten times a day."

Her brother smirked as he reached over and pinched the end of her nose. "It's the best way to make sure it sinks in."

Neelam smirked herself as she spotted a joke her brother had walked right into.

"Does that mean I should annoy you about getting a haircut more often?" she teased as she curled a strand of her brother's hair around her index finger.

He unraveled his hair from her finger; she let him. "I like it the way it is just fine, thank you very much," he stated. "And don't even try to compare the two. My hair doesn't have any impact on our lives regardless of how long it is. You telling the truth to Alana could be very dangerous."

Neelam tried not to groan. She had heard that a hundred times, and on a rational level, she knew they were right. But it was just so frustrating to have been so close to having a friend like her and not even be able to be her friend properly.

"Look, I'm not saying you can't see Alana ever again, and you know neither Mom nor Dad ever said it either," Praveer appeased. "You can still keep in touch with her. I'd even say you should keep in touch with her, because she can't have too many friends at a time like this. You just need to stay quiet about what you are, like you have done so far."

Neelam slapped the couch's seat in frustration.

"Why must I?" she shouted. "I'm sure she won't snitch on me to all the pods she encounters or cut me up for sushi or throw me into a tank."

"Mom and Dad said that you can't," Praveer stated. "And until they change their minds, you'd better do as they say from now on. You may have gotten away with it this time, but I can't keep covering for you if you keep sneaking out, and what's more important, you can't expect that pod not to notice you if you keep swimming by their home."

The last bit did have some effect. As much as part of Neelam wondered how bad a mermaid pod could actually be, she had seen enough of the things they did to still be uneasy about the idea of running into one. If she hadn't, she probably would have rushed in to help Alana rather than stayed back overcome by her fear. If those three mermaids hadn't shown up to stop the other four, who knows what might have happened.

"I guess you're right," she relented. "Mom and Dad aren't idiots, and I'm grown up enough to know that they do mean well and lay out those rules because there is genuine danger involved. I just wish things didn't have to be like this."

Praveer sighed. "I know the feeling."

They sat there in silence for a few moments, the only noise that of a few seagulls who picked that moment to start squawking.

"Do you think there's any chance things will be different some day?" Neelam eventually asked. "That there won't be any need to hide from mermaids and I can have friends like me? Heck, do you think that I can ever have friends at all?"

Her brother shrugged.

"I don't hold the future in my hands. Anything can happen. And you know what they say: 'hope is the last to die'."

True. Land people did have that saying. And as far as she was concerned, Neelam still had that hope. But besides being old enough to know that her parents meant well and were trying to protect her, she was also old enough to know that having hopes by itself wasn't enough. People had to work for what they wanted, and so did mermaids.

And she wouldn't give up on what she wanted without working for it a bit more.

* * *

From the moment they settled into the café, the afternoon seemed to fly by. As they ate fish burgers and sipped their drinks – an orange juice for Evie, a watermelon one for Alana – their conversation went on, and it ended up breaching all sorts of subjects. It started about their respective countries, with Alana asking Evie things such as how it felt to basically have summer for the whole year, what sort of interesting places there were to see, and the differences between the Gold Coast and Lahinch as far as being underwater went. Evie answered her questions the best she could, telling Alana about places like Purling Brook Falls, Surfers' Paradise, and even about the nearby suburb of Mermaid Beach, which had gotten its name not because of any mermaid but because of a cutter named _HMS Mermaid_ , the vessel where the one who named the area had been at the time. Evie also talked of more personal places, like the park she had gone to since she was little and the beach she had used to go to before her transformation into mermaid prevented her from doing so, in the same manner as before at least.

She also asked Alana about Lahinch, and listened with interest to what Alana had to tell about the place. Although it was a small town, with only around 700 people, and had been a mere hamlet with only a few fisherman's huts until the 18th century, its story went all the way back to the Middle Ages, while the Gold Coast's had only truly started less than 200 years ago. Alana spoke of Lahinch's landmarks, most prominently the centuries old local forts and the ruined Dough Castle, which currently only had a tower left. Like Evie, she also ended up sharing more personal things, such as the area's best spots to catch crabs and a beach where there were waves that were really fun to ride.

At some point – Evie hadn't even thought of checking the time – they ended up paying for their food and leaving the café, but the conversation carried on as they went on a walk by the water, far enough from it not to be caught off-guard by a stray drop but close enough to jump in fast if they were somehow sprayed by sprinklers or something else. Evie deliberately did not broach anything else related to Alana's family, and the redhead did not bring the subject up either. The most personal thing Evie ended up sharing was how difficult it had been to quit triathlon, although it had become a necessity after she was rendered unable to touch water without growing a tail. Alana had confessed she had trouble knowing how it felt, as she had been a mermaid all her life and thus couldn't know what it was to be anything else, but she had also sympathized.

By now, after practically the whole afternoon had gone by, the two of them were sitting on a bench by the water, watching the sunset. Due to the Gold Coast's location, the sun's wasn't going under the sea when it set, but all the same, there were pink and orange streaks growing through the horizon, and at least for Evie, the feeling of relaxation that came from looking at them was no less prevalent than on the sunsets she'd seen at sea. Just as it always happened, when she looked at the setting sun, it seemed that all her problems went away and she was at peace with everything and everyone.

All the same, there was just something more magical about watching the sun setting at sea than on land. And a few moments after the thought came up, Evie realized she and Alana could enjoy that much more easily than most who were currently watching the sunset on land.

She turned to Alana and voiced her idea.

"You know, we could enjoy an even better sunset if we went to watch it at sea." She stood up. "Do you want to come?"

Alana's eyes sparked with interest and she started to nod as she stood up as well, but then, her eyes widened as if something had come over her.

"No. I can't do that," she said. "I'm sorry, but I have to go."

"Why?" Evie asked, trying not to sound as alarmed as she felt. "What's wrong?"

A sad look came over Alana's eyes. It only remained there for a few instants, but it was long enough for Evie to notice. What was going on?

"Nothing's wrong," she explained. "I just remembered that I need to get back to my group home rather soon, or I'll be in trouble."

 _Ah._ Evie thought, a bit calmer. The group home must have some sort of curfew that Alana would do better not to violate. But the relief was all too brief. If that was what Alana was afraid of, it really would be better for her to go before she could be out past hours, assuming she wasn't already. From a glance at her watch, Evie figured she wasn't, but all the same, it was better to be safe than sorry. The ideal would be if Alana didn't have to go back to that group home, but anything Evie could do to change that would take days or even weeks, not hours.

"Do you want me to take you there?" she offered. "It might be better if I explain that you were only out so late because I distracted you."

"You don't need to," Alana reassured. "The curfew isn't that harsh. I can still get there on time even if I walk."

Evie believed her, but she still didn't like the idea of letting her go like that. She would have already been uncomfortable doing so only on the first minutes after she met Alana. Now that she had gotten to know her and care about her, she liked even less the idea of letting her go to a home full of people she didn't know, probably without anyone actually caring about her, and with some maybe actively bullying her.

"I can go with you anyway," Evie insisted. "I don't mind."

"But I do."

Evie tried not to look hurt at the statement. Alana must have realized the mistake in her words, because she looked horrified the moment Evie forced her expression to remain normal.

"I mean, you've already done so much for me. You paid me lunch. You listened to me." Alana's eyes moistened a bit. "Truth being told, over these last few hours, you've been the best friend I ever had. But I know I can't just hoard you."

Evie didn't know what to say to that. She knew she didn't have the right to force her way into Alana's life… but she worried. That was it. All she wanted was to be sure Alana would be alright.

"I'll be alright," the redhead pointed out as if she'd read Evie's thoughts. "Really."

Evie could tell the redhead was trying to convince herself as much as Evie. She wished she could just keep hammering on until Alana relented. She even wished she could just invite Alana to her home and have her stay there – she'd most certainly be better off than any group home of the foster care system. But Evie also knew she couldn't be so invasive all of a sudden, given how little they actually knew each other, and that taking Alana to her home would be seen as kidnapping from a legal point of view. If Alana wanted to go alone, Evie couldn't stop her.

But she could do something else.

"Alright," she said.

She then took Alana's hands off of her shoulders and held them in her own. "But if you want to find me again, you just need to go to the _Ocean Café_." She gave her the place's address, and added, "I work at its clothes shop, and I'm typically there in the afternoon. If you show up, I promise I'll make time for you."

Alana started speaking as if she was going to refuse the offer, but no sound came out of her mouth, as if she was trying to think of the right words. Evie again did her best to remain patient and not press her to say anything.

"Alright," Alana at last said. "Thank you for the offer." She smiled. "And thank you for today. It was the best day I had in a long time."

"I'm glad I could help," Evie said with a smile of her own.

Then, the two of them shared a hug, the first one they shared without any crying involved, and also the shortest, although it still lasted several seconds, and Alana seemed reluctant to let go. But eventually, at a snail's pace, she started pulling away. Though it felt comparable to having a tooth pulled, Evie let her.

"See you," Alana said with one last smile.

Then she turned around and walked away. Her pace seemed normal, but Evie had the feeling she was hastening it. Evie couldn't tell whether it was because Alana was out past curfew after all or because she was trying to get away from her. She could only stand there until Alana vanished into the distance, and hope that somehow, the redhead would, like she had said, be alright.

* * *

 **Once more, there is a fancast of new characters who show up in this chapter. However, please note that only 'important' characters will be fancast. By this I mean I will not fancast 'extras', mainly because I'd run out of actors too soon. Thank you for your understanding.**

 **So, here goes my fancast for two more characters.**

 **Neelam - Jessica Green (who played Kiki in _Lightning Point_ , or, as USA readers might know it, _Alien Surf Girls_ )**

 **Praveer - Avan Jogia (who played Beck Oliver in _Victorious_ and Danny Desai in _Twisted_ )**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Again, I'll try not to take too long to update the next one.**


	3. Chapter 3: Advice About Secrets

**Credit note: Evie's mindset in this chapter is partly inspired by her mindset in CrazyHayniac's recent oneshot 'The Truth About Evie', so the credit for that goes to her.**

 **Again, I would like to apologize in regards to this chapter. There was a scene which I planned to include in here that will have to wait, again, until next chapter at least.**

 **I'd rather it didn't, but like the previous one, this chapter got a bit out of hand as far as length is concerned. For one, the depth to which some questions need to be discussed is causing these chapters' sizes to get away from me. For another, the mechanics of having characters at two places with a time difference of seventeen hours (according to my research, that's the time difference between the Gold Coast and San Diego) are being a bit more difficult to handle than I first thought. I'd like to promise that the scene in question will be in the next chapter after all, but I'm not sure it will.**

 **I apologize for that.**

* * *

 **Chapter 3 – Advice About Secrets**

Some hours later, when the night was already well underway, Evie exited the underwater tunnel that lead to the moon pool, her arms stretched forward as usual. One of the first things she saw was that there were already two merpeople in there. She knew with only a glance that one of them was Zac, his blue tail unmistakable due to there being no other mermen in the area this point. The second took an instant longer to identify, but Evie guessed from her tanned skin that it was Mimmi.

The moment she surfaced by Zac's side, she saw that she was right.

"Hi, Evie," Mimmi greeted.

"Hi," Evie replied.

Further conversation was interrupted for an instant as she and Zac pecked one another's lips in greeting. Then, Evie sat on the underwater ledge they always rested on when they were in the moon pool and turned to the born mermaid.

"Am I too late?" she asked, as a shiver of nervousness went through her heart.

Mimmi smiled. "Don't worry. There is still a bit to go before the ceremony begins. You two have some time to try to relax."

Evie tried to smile in return, but barely managed to move the corners of her mouth upwards. She knew Mimmi had only tried to be reassuring, but she didn't know if having any time to actually try to think about what was coming would make things any better or not.

No matter how many ways she tried to see it from, the idea of joining the pod for this full moon celebration was daunting. So much so that on the previous full moon, which had been the first one since the pod had returned to Mako, she had declined Veridia's offer to join, too nervous at what might be happening.

Perhaps not being a born mermaid made her more nervous about these things. Perhaps she was simply more senstitive to how big an honour it was to be invited to join such an integral part of the pod's life and too scared of screwing it. Or perhaps she was just too afraid of what the full moon might do to her during the ceremony. Whatever the reason, she had refused.

To her relief, the refusal had been accepted, and politely at that. Overall the pod had been understanding, but she had seen plenty of puzzled or even outright reproachful looks from mermaids of all ages. The only thing that consoled her somewhat was that, on the previous full moon, Zac also had declined the same offer, but even that was bittersweet, as she had the feeling Zac had been quite eager to join the celebration, and had only declined because Evie had been too apprehensive. She had tried to say he could go without her, but Zac had insisted that he wanted to share the experience with her, so it was up to her whether they went. It was the main reason she was making an effort this time around.

At least she already knew it would be worth it. Whether they enjoyed it or not, at least they would know what it was like.

"How is that mermaid you found?"

Evie returned to reality as if Zac's question had hauled her back.

"The one you told me about in your text," Zac clarified.

Evie didn't need the reminder. She remembered that while she had been ordering hers and Alana's meals at _Rikki's_ , she had sent three texts: one to Zac to tell him about the change in plans for their afternoon after meeting Alana, another to Carly to say she wouldn't show up at the café that afternoon and to apologize for that, and a last one to Sirena to ask her to stand in for her at the clothes shop, if it was at all possible.

"I don't know," Evie replied. "She seemed well when she left, but she also said she's living in a group home now, so I don't really know how well she can get. I invited her to go to the café if she ever needs someone to talk to, but I'm not sure she'll accept."

Zac reached over and put his left arm around her shoulders.

"I'm sure she will," he said with a smile. "You're great to be around."

Evie smiled at the compliment.

His look more serious, Zac added, "And if she somehow doesn't, it won't be your fault."

Evie nodded, unsure of what to say. She didn't think she had done anything that might make Alana upset, and as far she could tell the redhead had enjoyed being with her, but Evie had the feeling the Irish mermaid wanted to avoid her for some reason, in spite of the fact she had enjoyed the company. It almost seemed she was afraid of Evie, or of something Evie might bring along.

"I just wish there was more I could do for her," Evie said. "The irony. I can do things now that I wouldn't have thought possible a year ago, but I feel as helpless as a newborn mouse when it comes to mere human paperwork."

"Why don't you try to talk to your father?" Mimmi suggested. "Maybe he can do something to help."

Evie felt a weight starting to form in her chest at Mimmi's words; Zac pressed his hand to her shoulder as if to counter it. Indeed, something she had been thinking during her swim to the moon pool was that, as far as she knew, her father could indeed do something for Alana, if she only asked him. But she couldn't ask him that. While she was sure he wouldn't refuse, she had her reasons not to.

"I don't have the nerve to ask him," Evie confessed. "It's too big a favour to request, especially now that things aren't exactly how they used to be."

Before Mimmi could ask what she meant, Evie gestured to her tail. The instant she did, she saw understanding settling on the Canadian mermaid's features. Then, she saw her eyes narrowing slightly like she sometimes did when she was thinking. Evie knew she understood. With a secret like that between them, there was no way she could ask him such a big favour.

"Is the tail really causing you to grow so far apart?" Mimmi asked.

Evie glanced downwards at the water's surface. She would like to tell that no, things weren't as different as that in spite of her tail, but that would be a lie. Everything had changed. The biggest change was, of course, that they could no longer go diving together, although before Evie got her tail she would take every invitation he offered and even ask him if he wanted to go on a few occasions. Now, she no longer suggested they went diving her, and whenever her father asked her if she wanted to go, she gave him excuses that grew ever lamer with every one of his offers. She tried to make up for it by helping her father in as many ways as possible, but there was only so much she could do, especially when mundane tasks like washing the dishes had become a trial in themselves all because they involved water. This in turn had caused her father to ask her ever more questions about whether she was alright, or if there was anything she wanted to tell him, joined by reassurances that he could trust her with anything. She could also feel that he thought she was neglecting him, going through some tame kind of teenage rebellion that was tame in just about every other aspect but involved her no longer wanting to spend time with him, and her attempts to make him feel it wasn't true could only go so far when she couldn't tell him the truth.

"Yes," Evie at last replied. "The tail is really causing us to grow so far apart. I still love just about every other aspect of having it, but I wish I could tell him about it."

Zac kissed her forehead, and Evie felt some of the weight on her chest leaving her. But most of it remained there, and Evie knew it would until she told her father the truth.

She knew it was all up to her. It wasn't as if it was unheard of for mermaids to share the truth with land people. Sirena had told David, and Rita had told Harry. Evie could also tell her father. She might have her reasons to not tell him, but she knew all of them were of the kind she could deal with herself.

"But that's not the whole issue," she added to return to the conversation. "Even if I hadn't been turned into a mermaid, or if he already knew about it, I would have a hard time asking him."

Mimmi's eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Why?"

Evie sighed, as if a bit of her strength had left her from having to deal with the question. She had known from the beginning that being with Alana and caring for her was liable to leading her to reminisce on some of her own past's darker parts, and had accepted both facts, but it still managed to be a bit more difficult than she had pictured it.

Zac gave her a concerned look.

"Do you want me to explain?" he offered.

Evie hesitated. She preferred to explain things herself when they were so close to home. But Zac knew the whole story, and had even been there for some of it.

"Could you at least begin? Then let me take over when I'm ready?"

He grinned. "Sure."

He removed his left arm from her shoulders so it would be more comfortable for him to turn to Mimmi, but slid his hand down, at just the right spot for Evie to be able to hold his hand. She did.

"I think Evie's idea comes from the fact her parents used to foster children," he explained to Mimmi. "She's thinking that maybe she could ask her father to do the same for this mermaid."

Mimmi gave Zac a puzzled look.

"I thought your parents were the ones who couldn't have children."

"Mine also couldn't," Evie explained. "Or at least, they thought they couldn't. They both said that by the time I was born, they hadn't been trying to have a baby for years."

Mimmi nodded, and then shifted her position slightly on the ledge she sat on.

"So, they stopped fostering children when you were born, but you think he could do it again?" she asked.

Evie glanced at Zac. He took over. "They actually kept fostering children for years after Evie was born. I still met the last ones. But they did have to stop about a year after I met Evie."

Comprehension started to creep onto Mimmi's face. She must be starting to fill the blanks already. All the same, Evie told her the rest.

"That's when my mother got sick. Looking after her, me, and foster children was a bit too much for my father, and with my mother being so sick, we would have stopped being an eligible foster family anyway, so all the foster children in our home had to leave."

For the following moments, the three of them sat there in silence, Mimmi looking at her sympathetically, Zac holding her hand, and Evie trying to shut out the memories of those days, from her temporary siblings' – as she had called them at the time – sad looks when they had to leave, to the days she had spent felt when she learned that her mother was sick with something so serious. Both her parents had tried to say it wasn't as bad as it sounded, but neither were good liars, and Evie had realized from the beginning that doctors might not heal her mother. And unlike other children, she had already known about death – Blinky, the goldfish her father had given her for her seventh birthday, had only lasted only about a month before dying, a few weeks before her mother found she was sick. He had only been a goldfish, but Evie had still been devastated, not to mention learned the meaning of death. When she had learned the same might happen to her mother, especially so soon after losing Blinky, she had cried for days.

To force herself to stop dwelling on the memories, she carried on, "But yes, like Zac said, if I was to ask my father to do anything for Alana, the ideal thing to do, for her at least, would be to ask my father if he could take her in like he and my mother used to do. But I don't want him to do that if he would rather not do it without my mother beside him." She then explained the other issue with the idea. "And that's just his side of the problem – I'd have to think about Alana's as well."

"Alana is the mermaid you spent the day with, isn't she?" Mimmi asked.

Evie realized she had forgotten to tell them that. "Yes, that's right."

Zac asked the next question. "What's her side of the problem?"

"She seemed apprehensive enough when it came to merely spending a day with me," Evie explained. "If I just used our legal system to drag her into my house, she might have a panic attack."

A few moments of silence and her boyfriend's and friend's puzzled faces followed her explanation.

"Do you have any idea why?" Mimmi asked.

Evie shook her head.

If she had to guess, it might be simply because Delmar and the others had made her too nervous about the local mermaids, but it also might be for some reason she wasn't thinking of. Either way, the point was she couldn't drag Alana into her home without talking to her first. To do that, she had to either wait until Alana went to the café or to find out where she had gone. And while she could do the former, she had no idea on how to do the latter.

As if she was reading her mind, Mimmi started speaking.

"I don't know what you can do about Alana," she put in "But as far as your father is concerned, you could try to tell him the truth. Then things would go back to… well, maybe not exactly what they used to be, but I'm sure they'd be close enough to it that you could ask him if he can do something for Alana, even if he doesn't take her in."

Well that wasn't an option for sure. She wanted to help Alana, and she wanted to tell her father her secret, but she wouldn't do one to get to do the other. She would help Alana because she cared for her, and she would tell her father the secret to get the weight off of her, not to use it as a way of demanding anything from him or because she expected to get something in return.

"Even if you don't ask him to do anything, or if he somehow can't do anything for Alana after all, I really think you should tell him," Mimmi added. "If keeping your tail a secret is causing such a rift between you, tell him." Her face grew sad. "Sometimes preserving relationships is more important than keeping secrets."

Mimmi's eyes grew distant, and Evie knew she must be thinking of her mother, of the little she remembered of her, and how she'd had some problems coming to terms with the things she had learned her mother did. Evie could sympathize, although she didn't know what it was like from experience. None of her parents had ever kept such a thing from her. She was the one keeping something from her father, for all the reasons mentioned, and for one more.

This one, she had only shared with Zac, the only one who could truly understand, because he had a form of the same problem. But Mimmi had been nothing but kind to her. There was no reason for her to behave differently after learning this.

"I'm afraid," Evie confessed. "I don't know what he'll think of me if he sees the tail."

Mimmi smiled reassuringly.

"I'm sure he won't think anything bad. I know your father. Maybe not as well as you or Zac, but well enough to know he won't love you any less just because you gained a tail."

Evie did not voice her own opinion on that. She wanted to believe that Mimmi was telling the truth, and that from the moment her father overcame the initial shock after she told him she was a mermaid, things would go back to exactly the same they were before, only with the differences that now she wouldn't use oxygen tanks and flippers to dive with him, and she'd have to keep avoiding water while she was on land.

But could she really tell him? She knew from experience how big of a deal it was to learn that merpeople existed. She had had the shock of her life when she saw Zac swimming toward her with a blue tail trailing behind him, much more than when she saw Nixie opening up 'the Cave of Wonders' with her ring or when she scuba-dived into the infinite water chamber. Probably much more than those two combined. She had almost broken up with Zac over the shock of the truth she learned coupled with the knowledge he'd been lying to her.

But she hadn't.

All of a sudden, it was as if a firework exploded in her head and cast a blinding light across a pitch-black cave. She had been able to look past Zac's tail. She had been able to come to terms with Zac being a merman. Like she told him the day after Cam almost destroyed Mako Island, she loved him for who he was, not what he was. Zac having a tail didn't change anything about the kind of person he was.

And her father was a better person than her. He wouldn't, for instance, have started a physical fight over something as simple as shoes, or felt that twisted triumph Evie had experienced when she tried to get Sirena, Nixie and Lyla in trouble over the gold coin – the memory of which now seemed to make her shrink. Her father would likely be more upset over learning she had been so petty, nasty even, than over learning she was a mermaid.

Evie felt like slapping herself. Why couldn't she have learned from Zac's mistake? Him keeping his merman side a secret had almost destroyed their relationship. She couldn't let things between her and her father get to that point, and she certainly couldn't wait until there was a life-threatening peril involved to tell him. Any ideas of asking him to help Alana aside, he had the right to know.

And she decided then. Tomorrow, she would tell him about her tail, for better or for worse.

"You're going to tell him soon, I take it," Zac piped in.

"I will," Evie stated, doing her best to put every fibre of her being in those words as if that would not only make it true, but make it go smoothly. "I can't let things between him and get to the point they almost got to between us."

"A wise decision," Zac piped in with a teasing grin.

Evie splashed water at his chest with her free hand, although she grinned in amusement herself.

Then Zac squeezed her hand with a more serious look.

"Good luck," he said.

A few seconds of silence went by, filled by the held gaze between them and broken only by the water undulating against the rock.

Then it was shattered, as both of them were sprayed in the face with jets of water that seemed to have been squirted by hoses.

"Get a moon pool!" Mimmi teased, a wide grin on her face, and both her hands above water and aimed at them.

Zac wiped his face with his hand to clear off the excess water and turned to Mimmi.

"We are at a moon pool," he pointed out.

Mimmi only giggled.

"And besides, don't speak as if you're to talk," Zac added. "After all, your own boyfriend is coming back from the States tomorrow, and I know you well enough already to know you can't wait to be with him again." His face turning into a mock-stern one, he added. "Just remember, though it may not be common knowledge that we're siblings, I still have to go into protective big brother mode in front of him and tell him all the things I'll do to him if he breaks your heart before you two can date properly."

Evie could see Mimmi putting her hands on her hips in an attempt to sound threatening – but unlike on land, that effect wasn't very well achieved, because it wasn't easy to see or to get it across as intimidating. It didn't matter too much, though, because Evie could see from the way the corners of Mimmi's mouth twitched that she wasn't actually upset, just playing along.

"Technically, Chris is only arriving in three days, because of how long the flight from the United States is and of the time difference between here and there," Mimmi stated. "And we were born basically at the same time, so you're not my big brother. And you have no business threatening Chris, not to mention it won't be needed anyway. And I can date who I want, thank you very much."

"Well, I'm bigger than you, so _technically_ , I'm your big brother, even if I was born last, which we don't even know for sure," Zac pointed out with a teasing smirk.

Evie rolled her eyes. Regardless of the fact they hadn't known of one another for around seventeen years, Zac and Mimmi already behaved like true siblings, not to mention they were showing very similar stubbornness by refusing to let the other get the last word in.

But it seemed they would have to end the argument now, Evie realized as she saw a profile very similar to her own and to Mimmi's – although different in skin tone and hair colour – swimming into the moon pool.

Ondina surfaced the instant Evie was sure Zac and Mimmi were about to continue their verbal game, and both turned to look at her.

"Veridia asked me to tell you it's almost time for the ceremony to begin," she informed.

Zac and Mimmi nodded, any ideas of their playful argument apparently cast aside. Another shiver of apprehension went through Evie. This was it.

The feeling must have been echoed in her face, because the other three were now looking at her in concern.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mimmi asked.

Evie started feeling as if her heart had a swarm of very big and fat ants crawling over it. The memory of how she had ended up making a fool of herself during her first full moon – and how she didn't remember a minute of it – reared its ugly head once more. She had already gotten to the point where she could control the moon spell without any effort, which basically meant full moons were no different from any other night, but this time, with a ceremony involved, she wasn't sure if her control would be strong enough.

But Zac wanted to join in, and last time he had held back for her sake. So now she would join in for his'.

"Yes," she said. "Let's do this."

Zac gave her a thankful look. Mimmi smiled reassuringly.

"Don't worry. You'll love it," she said.

Evie smiled, both in thanks and in an attempt to calm herself down. Then the four of them dove and exited the moon pool.

* * *

When she saw Zac surfacing only about two meters from the group formed by her, Nixie, Sirena, and Aquata, Lyla started to smile at seeing that he'd be joining the celebration after all. But the next second, when Evie surfaced beside him, Lyla had to fight back a scowl.

Evie had become tolerable enough to be around after the barrier of the secret no longer existed, but it seemed that she and Zac went everywhere together these days, not to mention tended to be a lot closer (literally) when they were together than they had been on the last time Lyla had been to Mako. They'd hold hands as they swam through the reef, they'd go together on their deep dives, they'd both look after the hatchlings if no one else was available… they'd basically do everything together. She seldom saw one without the other, and when she did there usually was someone else present as well, typically Mimmi, or Ondina, or Sirena, or Veridia.

And the looks she'd caught Zac and Evie exchanging, and the feelings she saw in their eyes… she hadn't seen anything as strong between them last year. Granted, for most of last year things had been complicated between them, with Evie not knowing the secret and Lyla, Nixie, and Sirena getting in the way of their relationship during their plan to take Zac's tail away from him, not to mention that Evie hadn't been turned into a mermaid yet back then. But still… she didn't think they would become _this_ close just because there were no more secrets between them and they had one more thing to do together.

"We're here," Zac said. Mimmi and Ondina surfaced to his left. "Sorry if we kept you waiting."

"No problem," Sirena replied.

Evie glanced around, as if she was looking for something she expected to be there, but couldn't see it.

"So… what do we do now?" she asked timidly, like a child afraid of being laughed at.

"Now…" Nixie began, then trailing off into a dramatic pause. "…we hold hands."

Evie chuckled at the joke, but Lyla had to hold herself back from rolling her eyes. Bnd then, she had to fight back a smile as she saw a chance to go on with what she had wanted to do since she heard Zac was joining the ceremony.

"But the circles are typically made only by six members, and we're eight," she said, trying to sound nonchalant. "Shouldn't two of us go somewhere else?"

She tried not to look anywhere in particular as she spoke, lest anyone notice she was dropping any hint about who she thought should look for another circle. Maybe it was a mistake, because her question was only met with shrugs.

"I don't think we need to," Sirena said. "One way or another, we've all been through so much together, I doubt the pod will mind if our circle is a bit bigger."

"And the rule of six is only for mermaids," Mimmi added. "If we're already having a merman here, we can make another exception."

Lyla again repressed a scowl. Besides it risking giving her away, now was not the time for it. She had to seize whatever was left of her chance while she could.

She leaned forward and pushed herself toward Zac with a breast stroke, hoping to hold one of his hands.

Too late. His right hand immediately grabbed Evie's left one, and his left one held Mimmi's right one.

With both of his hands busy, Lyla turned right, swam to Ondina, who was already holding Mimmi's left hand in her right one, and grabbed her left hand. Meanwhile, Sirena grabbed Evie's left hand and reached with her other one to Aquata, who held Nixie's left hand in her right one. With only one thing left to do, Lyla grabbed Nixie's right hand. This time, she didn't feel the urge to scowl, but frustration rose within her like water heating up.

She had missed Zac while she had been away. Had missed their dives, the way she had helped him explore his connection to the sea, and the connection that back then had been growing between them. She had thought that after returning she could continue building what they had when she left, but then when she returned Evie had become a mermaid, Zac had found out he'd always been a merman and that he had a sister, and that what she, Nixie, Sirena and Zac had been through to stop Cam from falling into the moon pool with the trident was nothing compared to what he had been through with Evie, Ondina, Mimmi, and Sirena when he had to stop that other merman from activating the chamber, and later to shut the chamber down when their attempt at stopping him failed.

She hadn't wanted to get between Zac and Evie, but she also hadn't thought she would _need_ to. She had simply thought their relationship would erode away until it was a friendship at most, like those of so many land people who dated in their teenage years, and that the moment she and Zac started spending time together their relationship would keep growing. Now that Evie and Zac were still together and she had barely managed to be alone with him over the last two months – and any moments she got with him were short at best - she was at a bit of a loss regarding what to do.

A squeeze in her left hand brought her back to reality. She looked left and saw Nixie giving her a sympathetic look, with strong hints of warning mixed in. She could tell the other mermaid was telling her not to do anything hasty or wrong, while at the same time letting her know she understood what she felt. She probably did, as she had been sad for several days after learning that Cam and Carly had started dating during her absence. Unlike Lyla, though, she didn't intend to do anything about it.

Not that Lyla planned to do anything condemnable herself. She wouldn't sing any siren song to Zac, or force-feed him any potion, or cripple Evie and leave her for the sharks to eat (she literally wouldn't do that to any mermaid, merman, or land person she could think of), or even try to take Evie's tail (which apparently couldn't even be done, if a theory she had heard about the force of fifty full moons having irrevocably connected Evie to her tail was true). She would only try to spend time with Zac without Evie or anyone else around and try to rebuild what they had. If Zac really liked Evie as much as he seemed to, she would move on. She would be upset, but she would move on.

A familiar rush surged through her, pleasant enough for her to drop her annoyance about the fact she hadn't become closer to Zac. Lyla knew that the full moon had reached the right spot in the sky. A sincere smile appearing on her face, she raised her arms at the same time the other seven did, and the whole pod started the full moon celebration.

* * *

Curled into a ball under the blankets and sheets, which were pulled even over her head, Alana kept her eyes closed as tightly as possible, hoping with all her strength that she would remain safe until the night was out. Sweat gathered on her skin, and the air under the bedclothes was humid and heavy, but Alana kept them as they were, only daring to raise them for a few seconds at a time to open tiny gaps, always from the side opposite to the window.

She was far from comfortable with the blankets over her head, and as far as she knew she had never slept curled into a ball, not to mention it was impossible to fall asleep when she had to focus on raising the covers every few seconds to get fresh air in. But she wasn't trying to sleep. She was trying to survive.

Today was a full moon. And although she hadn't had any problems with full moons in years, she didn't want to take the chance that somehow, now that her mother was gone, her defences against moonlight would be down and she would betray herself to the whole group home. If she started acting loony and they saw her tail, it would be her end.

More than once, Alana had thought that maybe she should instead have stayed out the night, asked Evie to watch over her during the full moon, and taken a chance with the wrath of the group home's people in the morning. With Evie around, there would be someone to stop her if she started acting up because of the full moon. But being with Evie brought along risks of its own. If she started spending too much time with Evie, the born mermaids Evie knew and spent time with (certainly because she didn't know about their sinister side) would start spending time with her as well, and would eventually ask her questions. While Alana knew she could lie, she also knew she wasn't good at lying when she was nervous. And even if she lied convincingly, it seemed far from impossible that the mermaids would use their magic to get the truth from her mind if they suspected she was lying. Once they learned the truth, they would know what she was. And once they knew what she was, they would kill her.

If she wanted to stay alive, this was her only choice. And it wasn't as bad as it could be. After all, the teasing and the giggling and the imitations of ghost sounds from the other kids in the room had already stopped. She might not be comfortable, but she could get through this.

After all, she had no other choice anyway.

* * *

On the other side of the world and on the opposite hemisphere, at Grim Island, the same day that according to the Earth's time zones was close to its end at the Gold Coast had was not much over a quarter through on that small island forty kilometers off the shore of San Diego. The sun had already risen, but it was still low in the sky, and if not for the magic present on the spot giving it a kind of permanent artificial light, the moon pool at the bottom of the vertical tunnel in the island's western cliff would be bathed in a murky, gloomy kind of light that wouldn't let humans see anything.

Thanks to magic, there was more than enough light for the two mermaids in the moon pool to see what they were doing, but as far as Sedna was concerned, out of all the things she could see, there was only one that she wanted to see right now – the fact that the patch of sky she could see through the skylight was light enough for her shift to end.

As she and Hydrurga had agreed, Sedna would guard the potion for the night while Hydrurga slept, and then Sedna could sleep herself once daylight arrived. Sedna thought it would be better if it was the other way around, as Hydrurga was the most powerful of the two of them, and thus would be the better choice to fight any threats that might show up – as if any would at a place like this – but the fact Hydrurga was more powerful also meant she could enforce her demands if she felt she had to. And Sedna had already learned it was better not to make her feel like that.

On the other hand, she wanted to go to sleep, and at this point in time, there should be no way for Hydrurga to argue that it was too soon for her to be woken up.

So, she swam forward and put her hand on the other mermaid's shoulder to shake her awake.

The moment she touched her, Hydrurga's eyes snapped open and she shifted into a vertical position with such vigor that she made a foamy wave several centimetres tall. Sedna's heart leapt in her chest. Mermaids had light sleep, but Hydrurga only needing a touch to be awakened made every other mermaid Sedna knew seem difficult to wake.

"What is it, Sedna?" Hydrurga enunciated with a glare.

Sedna pointed upwards toward the skylight.

"It's morning," she explained. "We had agreed I could go to sleep at this time and you would take over for me."

Hydrurga's glare faded into a mere stern look, but it was still intense enough for Sedna to fear she had changed her mind while. Sedna hoped that wasn't true, but if it was, there was nothing she could do. If she tried to argue, Hydrurga would use force on her, and Sedna didn't want to be the target of magic made by a mermaid like her – a mermaid of the only kind that even Northern Mermaids like Sedna viewed as dangerous and were wary or even afraid of.

"Yes," Hydrurga stated. "We did agree on that. You can go to sleep. But don't be surprised if I wake you up because I need your help."

Sedna smiled in relief. Hydrurga would still let her go to sleep after all, and she very much doubted anything would happen until the time for their plan arrived. Nothing had disturbed them during the month and a half they had spent in the moon pool. It would not be now, with less than a day until they could do what they had been getting ready for, that anything would. And if anything did, she would be sure to give it a powerful deterrent, if Hydrurga didn't simply destroy it first.

Judging from the stern look of her face, she might do it even to an unfortunate sea bird that happened to fly down the ceiling. But that wasn't Sedna's concern.

Already half asleep, she floated on her back and closed her eyes, as beside her, Hydrurga settled in by the small ledge where they had hidden the potion they would use that night, when the full moon passed over the skylight.

The last thought Sedna had before drifting into sleep was that she hoped it would work.

* * *

 **This time around, there is no fancast, as no original characters join the story. All the same, one note regarding it. For most characters, the 'look' I imagine them with is the one they had around the time Mako Mermaids aired/is airing for the first time. But for certain characters, particularly the younger ones (i.e. the children and young teenagers), the 'official role' I present as a reference is meant to hold even truer, due to how fast children grow. All the same, when the time comes, I'll try to be even more specific regarding some characters' ages.**

 **Also, there is a warning which I acknowledge I should have given on the first chapter, but forgot to until now. To any Zyla (Zac/Lyla) and/or Cixie (Cam/Nixie) fans, I'm sorry to say you won't find them in this story. Both Zevie (Zac/Evie) and Camly (Cam/Carly) will be followed here both because of the status of their relationships in season 2, and with Zevie in particular because I like it more than Zyla. I don't like Camly as much, but I still like it enough to not want to break it up for Cixie.**

 **Please note, however, that I don't intend to portray neither Lyla nor Nixie in an unsympathetic or villainous manner. I can't promise anything in regards to any romances they might have, but unless they get to hear the song Sirena heard in 'The Siren' or are affected by something with similar results, they won't be villains.**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The next one will probably take a bit longer to come, but hopefully not too long.**


	4. Chapter 4: Preparations For Reveals

**So... another chapter that got away from me as far as length is concerned. And again, the scene I hoped would be included at last wasn't included. At least this time around there is a bit more of a preview to it, and I did get to give all the final steps for a scene that was set up last chapter.**

 **Either way, I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

 **A note on the first chapter: If you remember, the initial version of this story's first chapter, 'The Calm Before The Storm', referred to the current day (this chapter's yesterday regarding in-universe time) as Saturday. I went back and changed it to Sunday, so please don't be confused at seeing this chapter's today as a Monday. The note after the chapter will give a more complete explanation for the change.**

 **A note regarding Australian school years for non-Australian readers: Australian school years are divided in four terms, and the terms' exact dates depend on the Australian region one is at. They also have four vacation periods: Summer Vacation, Autumn Vacation, Winter Vacation, and Spring Vacation, in this order. Summer Vacation starts at the end of one callendar year and carries over into the next. And no, I'm not Australian, I'm Portuguese, and I haven't ever been to Australia either, so if any Australian reader notices any crass mistake he or she would like to correct me on, please don't be afraid to.**

* * *

 **Chapter 4 – Preparations For Reveals**

"Yes, alright, I'll meet you there."

Those were the first words Evie could make out as she neared her house's porch, well rested after a good night's sleep, and still determined to tell her father about her tail after vowing to do so on the previous night.

She knew without having to look that her father must be having a phone call, but she couldn't see who he would talk to on a Monday morning, much less to whom he would say such a thing. He dealt with just about all business things on the phone or through e-mail, he typically met with his friends on weekends, and he hadn't dated since her mother had died, although Evie, after she grew up enough to understand how those things worked, had made it a point to state more than once that she wouldn't make things difficult for him if he chose to do so. He'd never done so anyway. Was he starting to consider it now?

"Say hi to Clara and the children," her father added.

Evie couldn't be sure without listening the other person's voice, but if her father was talking to who she thought, apparently he wasn't starting to date. She could only think of one Clara her father knew. She was married to his friend Jonas, who worked on foster care and handled the fostering Evie's parents' did during the years they had fostered children. Evie knew her father and Jonas still met on occasion for a bottle of beer, but why would they be talking on a Monday, and so early at that?

"I will," her father said. "See you."

When she heard him hanging up the call, she resumed her way to the porch. As usual, her father sat at the table. An empty glass of juice and a dish full of crumbs lay in front of him. He raised his eyes as he finished slipping the phone into his pocket.

"Good morning, Evie," he told her. "Did you sleep well?"

"I did," she replied with a smile. "Did you?"

"The sleep of the just," he answered.

Evie sat down on the chair in front of him. As she pulled it closer to the table, she asked, "Was that your friend Jonas on the phone?"

"It was. I'm meeting him for lunch today."

So it really was Jonas. Apparently her intuition was still good, but that didn't answer her main question.

"What does he want?"

Her father shrugged. "I'm not sure. He said he needed my help, but he also said he'd rather discuss it in person, so he asked me if I could have lunch with him for us to talk. I can, so I'm meeting him for us to talk."

That answered nothing, but if her father didn't seem worried, Evie figured it was better for her not to be either. After all, he had heard Jonas' voice, he was good at telling how people felt from the sound of their voices, and he hadn't sounded particularly worried when he didn't know Evie was listening. If he was this relaxed, then Jonas most likely hadn't told him anything serious and wasn't worried about anything.

And if he wasn't worried now, he likely would be soon anyway. Evie didn't like that she would cause him to feel like that, but her idea to tell him about the tail made it necessary. She knew she could just walk inside and pour a glass of water over herself and sit on the couch with her tail on display, but for safety's sake, she had decided to tell him in a more complex manner that would involve a very low possibility of anyone walking in at the wrong time. It did have the downside that he would be worried for a while, but that would be dealt with once he learned the truth.

"So, any plans for your Winter Vacation?" her father asked.

That was a good question. The day before at this time, Evie hadn't had a lot of particular plans. She had thought she'd be working at selling clothes and renting diving equipment, going for swims with Zac or any of her mermaid friends, continuing her mermaid lessons with Rita, and doing her homework for the vacation. But after she met Alana, that had changed. And after she had decided to tell her father the truth, it had changed even further.

"I have some ideas," she finally said. "I'm not sure of what I'll end up doing, but I have some ideas."

Her father nodded, doing his best to keep his face neutral, but she could see the flicker of sadness at Evie no longer asking if he had a few free days for them to dive together like they used to. Well, if her plan went forth, they could dive again.

But for her plan to go forth, she needed to know something.

"Are you free for the morning, dad?"

Her father perked up a bit at the question.

"I am," he said. "I'm meeting a honeymooning couple at three o'clock to show them pictures of Rainbow Point so they can make sure they want to dive there, but I'm free until I have to meet Jonas for lunch, which I'm doing at half past one."

Evie held back a relieved smile. "Then could you do me a favour?"

He deflated a bit at the question, and Evie knew he had been hoping for her to ask for a dive – again. All the same, he said, "Sure, sweetheart. What is it?"

He looked at her expectantly, but as Evie tried to bring the words out of her mouth, she started to hesitate. Perhaps this hadn't been the best idea after all. Perhaps she could still tell him about the tail some other way, maybe even by the much more practical way of going inside and pouring a glass of water over herself.

No. She had started this, she would end it. The way she had devised to tell him about her tail might not be the best, but Evie had no hopes about finding a manual titled _How To Tell People You Care About That You Gained Mermaid Powers After A Dip In A Magical Pool_. At least this way it should be safer.

"Could you meet me at Rainbow Point around ten o'clock?" she asked. It was in three hours; it would give plenty of time for him to digest the breakfast and take his boat to Rainbow Point without needing to hurry, and Rainbow Point was distant enough from land for no one to see her looking out at the sea and remote enough for her father to see her as a mermaid with a virtually null risk of anyone running into them.

He seemed to be finding the request awfully strange, which she couldn't blame him for, but she hoped he wouldn't say no.

"Sure…" he said, trailing off at the end of the sentence. "But why don't you go with me? It will be easier."

"I have some things I need to do first," she explained. "Once I'm done, I'll meet you there."

Her father still seemed puzzled.

"Who will take you?"

"I have my means to go," she replied. She knew it sounded evasive, but it was all she could tell him for now.

This time, though, her father didn't ask any question. He probably thought she'd borrow a boat to go there, which she most likely could do if she had to. But with mermaid tails being literally faster than any boat, not to mention non-pollutant, there was no reason to do it.

Now she only had a last thing to say.

"One more thing. Don't take anyone with you, and if at all possible, try not to tell anyone where you're going."

She doubted it would be necessary to ask him that, but all the same, it was better to be safe than sorry. Last thing she needed was some random stranger hitching a ride, seeing her tail, and blabbing it to the whole world.

Once more, her father looked puzzled.

"Why are you asking me all these things?"

Evie sighed. She wasn't used to her father asking her for so many explanations. Generally, he just trusted her, just like she trusted him. But generally she wasn't as enigmatic as she was being now.

"When we meet there, you'll understand," she finally said.

Her father let out a frustrated breath. "Evie, why so much secretiveness for a mere dive, and why can't you even give me a straight answer?"

She deliberately looked her father even more squarely in the eyes than she used to, and tried to speak in the calmest, most reassuring tone she could muster. "Like I told you, when we meet there, you'll understand."

She held his gaze for several seconds after her sentence ended, as if that somehow would cause him to trust her and let the matter drop. Her father still didn't seem certain, so Evie said the last thing she could. She had hoped she wouldn't have to say it, but it seemed she had to. "Please. Just trust me."

It was one of the things she hated telling her father the most. Usually, they just trusted each other with anything, and didn't need to ask the other to trust them on anything. To ask for trust, whether from each other or from anyone else, somehow seemed to imply that it wasn't there, which both of them knew wasn't true in their case or in the case of anyone they trusted.

Her requested seemed to make her father even more uneasy, but at last, he nodded.

"Alright, I'll meet you there. And I won't take anyone or tell anyone where I'm going."

With a smile, Evie stood up and walked over to her father. When she got to him she leaned down and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

"Thanks, dad," she said.

After she ended the hug and stood back up, she added, ""And take your diving gear. I think you'll need it."

To her joy, a flicker of hope returned to her father's eyes, but it was all too brief before it vanished.

"Do I take yours as well?" he asked as if he already expected the answer to be no.

Evie thought a bit about what to say. She knew she didn't need diving gear, and she knew her mermaid powers weren't comparable to diving gear under any aspect, but if she just told him not to, he'd be even more hurt than he already was over Evie not diving with him.

She settled on, "There's no need."

Again, it sounded evasive, but once more, her father asked no question. He must also be thinking she'd get diving gear rom the café's dive business rental before she went to meet him. It wasn't true, but she'd let him think that for now. After all he'd know everything in about two hours.

"I have to go now," she said. "See you later."

She pecked his cheek in goodbye and then started walking down the steps that lead to the stretch of grass along the canal, but just before she got down the last one her father called her.

"Wait! Won't you have breakfast?"

She turned around to reply. "I'll have it at Zac's home."

Her father nodded. It was far from uncommon for her to have breakfast at Zac's home, or for him to have it at hers. She did have a special reason to go there today, but this was something that wouldn't make her father suspicious.

Before she could resume her way, Evie noticed her father's forehead creasing, and then his eyes lit up as if he'd made a sudden connection. Apprehension started to crawl up her spine; given their turn of conversation, she thought she knew what was coming.

"Evie, is Zac somehow involved in…" he paused as if searching for the right words "…whatever is causing all this secrecy?"

Evie's heart tripled in weight and sank down to her feet. Her father had just voiced the one question she had hoped he wouldn't ask. She had done her best so far to prevent Zac from coming up on the conversation, and any planning she had made for the reveal of her secret had involved plans to not tell her father that Zac was a merman, least of all that he was a born merman rather than a human who had ended up in a moon pool. But now that he had asked, she saw no way to deny it.

Her only relief was that on the previous night, after the full moon celebration, the two of them had discussed the issue, and he had assured her that if she needed to tell her father that he was a merman, he could. That did make things a bit easier, but it hadn't made her hope any less that she wouldn't have to tell him.

But now the cat was out of the bag – or the moray was out of the cave, according to the merpeople version of the proverb.

"He is," she confessed "But please don't tell his parents anything."

Her father's eyes narrowed.

"Evie, you know I can't do that," he stated.

"I wouldn't ask you to keep it from them if it wasn't really important," Evie insisted, trying to keep a calm voice, even as her heart started to race.

"Rob and Lauren deserve to know," her father insisted, as firm as before.

"It's not our place to tell." Her heart now seemed to be moving as fast as a TGV.

Her father's expression remained as stern as before. "They're his parents. Whatever it is he's hiding from them and you have been hiding from me, it's been eating them up for even longer than it's been eating me up. They don't deserve to go through that."

Evie took a deep breath, both to get her heartbeat down and to loosen her vocal chords, as her voice seemed to be getting stuck in her throat.

"I know that," she said, speaking lower than she would have liked, but still loud enough. "And Zac knows that as well. It's been eating him up to keep it from them. But he isn't ready to tell them yet."

"Just what is so serious that you kids couldn't tell us from the beginning and that you want me to keep from Zac's parents now that I'll finally know?"

"You'll understand once I tell you everything," Evie reassured. "For now, just know it's not alcohol, or drugs, or crime in any form. We're not being threatened, we're not being harassed, we're not being blackmailed or forced into smuggling anything… we're not doing anything that can be considered criminal or harmful to our health."

The last one could be a bit of a stretch, but overall not really an exaggeration. Shifting from merperson to human form was not harmful to their health, and for all the magic both of them had been exposed to since their transformations, Rita had assured them none of it had left any lasting effects, as according to her anything that could be undone by magic would be undone to its fullest by default. With magic, there was no middle ground. While there was room for mistakes and for accidents and (thankfully) for fixing things, nothing was 'half done'. As far as magic was concerned, something either could be fixed completely or couldn't be fixed at all.

Her father started raising his hands; an instant later, he lowered them again, but his next sentence was uttered louder than he usually spoke. "Just what can be so serious without being illegal or dangerous?"

Evie tried not to wince. Her father rarely raised her voice, and never without a good reason. Extreme frustration was one of the few things that could make him do so, and she could feel it as if it was material.

Telling him about her secret wasn't being easy at all.

But she still believed it would be worth it in the end.

"All I can tell you for now is that you'll understand everything when I tell you the truth," she said. "And I promise I will tell you if you meet me at Rainbow's Point at the time we set." After a moment's pause, she begged, "And I know I can't make you not do anything, but _please_ , don't tell anything to Zac's parents. At least not before our conversation."

At last, her father's eyes softened, as they shifted into the faraway look they got whenever he was thinking about anything. And as they did, Evie's heart started to lighten. This was no dream scenario, but she knew it was about the best result she could have realistically hoped for.

After what felt like an eternity, he said, "Alright. I'll meet you there and listen to what you have to say." He sighed as if he was having a headache, and added, "And although I don't like it at all, I'll also promise I won't tell anything to Zac's parents until you tell me the truth."

"But I may very well change my mind once I know what it is you two have been hiding," he warned right after.

Evie nodded, relieved that he had agreed to her request. She might not know if he would still agree after he learned the truth, but she saw no reason for him not to. He might be upset over keeping things from Zac's parents, but surely he would understand why he did so.

"I understand," she said. "See you later, dad."

"See you later, Evie," he replied, every line of his face looking like it was working to hold his unease in check.

With nothing more to say, Evie turned back around and started walking along the canal. It hadn't exactly been a pleasant conversation, and it certainly hadn't been full of bright notes, but it would be the last one of the kind they had to go through, unless Evie somehow found herself keeping another secret compared to her mermaid one, which she hoped would never happen. She knew she still had to tell her father the truth, and she surely was still nervous about it, but at least she'd already given an important step in that direction.

Whatever happened next, there was not much of a point in dwelling on it now. She had to go to Mako Island to ask Mimmi a question. As Mimmi didn't have a cell phone yet, Evie had to talk to her face to face, and being this early, she most likely was still with the pod, either waking up or having breakfast. After she talked to Mimmi, she had something to take care of at Zac's home, something they had talked about while he walked her home the previous night. She'd ended up having an idea to find Alana, and she thought Doctor Blakely could help her with that.

Her idea was by no means a guaranteed success, and she would wait a bit so Alana wouldn't feel she was invading her space, not to mention to give her the chance to choose to go to the café on her own. But if Alana didn't show up, Evie wanted to know she was alright, and for that she would have to know where Alana was.

But first, she had to talk to Mimmi. So, as soon as she got to a spot that seemed empty enough, she looked around and, after verifying no one was nearby, she dove into the water and, after assuming her mermaid form, sped off toward Mako Island.

* * *

At the same time, but at two o'clock in the afternoon of the previous day according to the local time zone, Chris stood by the ocean at Seaport Village, looking over the water. With a clear sky overhead, the azure water before him, and clean sea air all around, the complex had to be one of the best places to be at in this city.

He'd first read about it in a San Diego tour guide on his series of flights to the United States, but hadn't gotten a chance to really visit the place until now. It was interesting for sure, with a mix of building styles that ranged from the Victorian to the Mexican, a variety of stores where it seemed everything could be sold – something that had come very in handy when he decided to buy gifts for those back home – all sorts of places to have a meal at, from a food court to several bay view restaurants, and most surprisingly, but also most pleasantly, a literally car free environment, as the place had been designed to have winding paths rather than streets connecting its buildings.

It was a bit of a pity the aquarium couldn't have gotten them rooms in here, but Chris knew the program's budget had better destinations than its members' sleeping arrangements, and he had wanted to enter it so much that he would have slept in a sleeping bad if he had to. Thankfully, he'd had a bed – and even more thankfully, the dolphin program had been everything he had hoped for and more.

A dream come true indeed.

He was a bit sad it had already ended, but he planned to make use of what he learned when he went back to Australia. And while he had loved the program, he also wanted to go back home. There were people he missed in the Gold Coast, most of all his grandfather, who had been the one first telling him about the sea. As a child, Chris had spent hours after hours listening to his grandfather tell all sorts of stories, and loved just about all of them. While now he guessed at least a few of those were either educated guesses or outright fiction, he had the occasion to learn most of them were indeed true, which had only impressed him further. Even now that Chris was nineteen, his grandfather still had new stories to tell, and although he no longer heard them as often as when he was a child, he still liked to do so on occasion.

He also missed Mimmi. Although they had only been together in the literal sense of the word for a few days, he had known since very early on that he loved being with her, and since the first time they chatted online he always tried to save some time every day to talk to her. It was a bit difficult at times, mostly when they forgot how much later it was at the Gold Coast than at San Diego. If Chris was making accurate estimations, it was already time to wake up on Monday at the Gold Coast, while here it was still Sunday and still reasonably on time to have lunch. But like the dolphin training program, Chris wouldn't have traded it for anything. They might not have known each other for long, but Chris knew he liked her.

He also knew he was fascinated by her. Over the last three months, she had shared ever more facts about the sea, a few of which had been helpful for him at the program, but most of which only caught his interest and made him eager to learn more. He deliberately tried to keep his questions away from dolphins; he certainly wasn't with her because of what he could get from her knowledge, or even for her knowledge only. He liked her sense of humor, her sunny mood, and her curious nature. But he couldn't deny that she seemed like a bottomless well of information about the sea. The only thing that puzzled Chris more than her knowing so much was how whenever he tried to ask her how she knew so much, she either dodged the question or gave vague answers until he changed subjects.

In a way, it reminded Chris of his grandfather; whenever he had asked him a question of that sort, the gist of his grandfather's reaction was basically the same as Mimmi's. A bit different, but similar enough in that he either changed subjects or only gave vague answers.

He didn't care, though. He knew he liked Mimmi and that, when he went back home, he wanted to date her. Perhaps what they had wasn't love yet, but if Mimmi felt about him the same way he did about her, he believed it could be one day. That had earned him more than a few snide remarks from his colleagues at the program, from mild ones about him being too young to settle down to nasty ones about how he was delusional if he thought any human girl would like him, but Chris had learned to deal with the latter, and regarding the former, he knew that sometimes people found love when they were young. His grandfather had after all.

 _That's not the best example, given what happened to him._ A voice in Chris' head pointed out.

Chris ignored it. It did have a point, but if there was one his grandfather had told him as much as about the sea, it was to learn from his mistakes. And although whatever he and Mimmi became would be as much up to her as it was up to him, Chris knew he didn't want to make the same mistakes his grandfather had made.

Sure, he might make different ones, but when they started dating, he would do his best not to screw up.

A brief breeze blew around him, as if to drive those thoughts away from his mind. Being summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it was a warm one, but it still made him relax like a string being unwound. The next instant, he was back to simply enjoying the view and the peace this place seemed to instil in him, not thinking about anything else.

* * *

As far from the land boy as they possibly could be while still being close enough not to let him out of their sights, Sedna and Hydruga sat at what they had learned to be a café's outside table, empty bottles of water on its wooden surface.

It had been a bit difficult to learn the workings of those strange pieces of metal and paper that land people exchanged for things they got, almost as much as getting used to walking on legs, but by now Sedna at least was used enough that she felt that she could live here if she had to. She didn't want to by any means, but if certain things she didn't want to think of happened, living on land at this place would be somewhat bearable. To her surprise, she had even found herself rather enjoying the looks several land boys had given her in her ankle-length yellow sundress and matching foot-coverings that apparently were called flip-flops - although there had been a view who just seemed to devour her with their gazes and made her skin crawl.

Hydrurga wore an outfit equal to Sedna's in all but the color, which was light blue, but in her case, any land boy who even glanced at her was targeted by a glare that caused them to walk away and had even made three of them bolt. Why Hydrurga didn't like their gazes, Sedna had no idea, but she wouldn't ask either.

Even for Sedna, the land boys' appreciation was still about the only pleasant thing about this. She still preferred to swim rather than to walk, or to not need to drink water from bottles, or to go underwater rather than into the shade when the sun got too hot to withstand.

At least this wouldn't go for much longer. Tomorrow by this time, Sedna and Hydrurga could go back to the sea on a permanent basis, unless something she wasn't thinking of happened. From that point on, and until they were done with their plan, the land boy would do any land-related thing they needed him to.

In a way, Sedna felt sorry for him. He was just a land boy, and from what she had been able to see, he was a kind-hearted one. And in a sense, land people in general weren't bad per se. Ignorant, foolish, and maybe even somewhat stupid, but Sedna wouldn't go as far as to call them irredeemably evil.

But the land boy was having a relationship with Nerissa's daughter, and without knowing so had made himself very useful for Sedna's and Hydrurga's plan. It wouldn't be a happy outcome for him, but land people would go on existing regardless of whether their plan failed or not.

But if mermen as a whole returned, or if Nerissa's children kept on existing, all mermaids would be in danger. And neither Sedna nor Hydrurga would allow for that.

* * *

As on many other mornings, a knock came from the other side of the door while Zac was getting dressed. Had it come any earlier, he'd tell them to wait, but with him already wearing everything but a shirt, any of the people he expected would be there could come in.

"It's open!" Zac called as he put his white shirt with grey sleeves on.

He heard the door open a second after, and when he finished putting his head through the proper hole Evie was already inside and closing the door. With her hair down and her head turned to the side, he couldn't see her face at first, but when she fully turned to him, he noticed her face seemed a bit sad, and when she walked to him he saw that her steps were a tad slower than usual. Still, she smiled slightly at him.

"Good morning, handsome," she quipped.

"Good morning, gorgeous," he said right back.

They exchanged a kiss in greeting, and then went to sit on the couch. After they settled in, Zac asked, "So, how did it go?"

Evie frowned a bit, and concern pricked at him. He had known it would likely be a shock for Mr. McLaren to know that his daughter had been hiding she was a mermaid for months, but for the most part he'd had faith it would be well. He was less worried about Mr. McLaren learning than he had been when Carly found out. For Evie to make that face, something must have gone badly.

"I haven't told my father yet," Evie said. "But I talked to him, and he agreed to meet me at Rainbow Point at ten o'clock. I'll meet him there in mermaid form and tell him everything then."

Zac felt surprise rising within him. He had known Evie would have to show her father her mermaid form for him to believe her, and maybe even to put some magic on display for him to actually accept it wasn't just some weird illness, but he hadn't expected her to actually just decide to show up to her father in mermaid form.

But maybe it was better like that. The shock would be big anyway, and out in the middle of the ocean there should be less danger of anyone barging in and seeing her tail. And in the ocean, Evie would be able to dive and get away if she was in danger, unlike what had happened when he, Evie, Ondina, Mimmi, and Sirena had been exposed to Carly and had been lying in the grass like beached whales. If anyone less well-meaning had shown up, they would have been doomed.

"And I need to warn you: he already knows that something is up with you," Evie added. "When I tell him about me, I'll have to tell him about you as well, and most likely also about Mimmi."

Zac repressed a frown of his own. He had acknowledged such a possibility on the previous night, and had agreed that if Evie felt she had to tell her father about him, she could. Still, he wasn't thrilled about the idea of Mr. McLaren learning the full truth.

"That's alright." He made his best to give Evie a reassuring smile. "I knew it could happen when I agreed you could tell him about me if you had to, and I haven't changed my mind."

Evie held his hand. "Thank you."

"Did Mimmi change her mind?" Zac couldn't help but to ask. While he knew Evie might not have talked to her yet today, and had a good idea of what the answer would be if she had, he still wanted to know.

"She didn't," Evie replied. "I went over to Mako Island before coming here to ask her, and she repeated what she said yesterday when the three of us talked: that if I felt I had to tell my father about her, I could."

His idea of what her answer would be was right, as Zac expected. But he couldn't feel as happy for Evie as he knew he ought to. He was happy she would restore her closeness with her father, but he couldn't help but be apprehensive about himself. While all those who knew of his 'scaly secret' now also knew that Mimmi was his sister, he'd never had to deal with an adult knowing he had a tail, other than Rita, who being a mermaid herself didn't really count. And Mr. McLaren wasn't any adult. He was close to his parents, and Zac noticed they had all been spending some time talking about what might be causing him and Evie to be so secretive. If Mr. McLaren knew about him not being a born human and having a mermaid sister, he might tell them everything. Zac knew Evie would ask her father not to say anything, and overall Zac trusted Mr. McLaren to keep quiet… but still… there was just that tiny grain of doubt he couldn't shake off no matter how much he tried.

"I'm sorry I have to tell him about you," Evie apologized. "I know this is still a bit difficult for you to deal with."

Zac held Evie's hand tighter and turned to look her in the eyes.

"You don't need to apologize," he reassured. "I agreed to it. Mimmi agreed to it. We knew what we were getting into, and we both want to help things between you and your father to go back to normal."

Evie squeezed his hand in return.

"You know that if you told your parents, things could also get better between the three of you, right?" she asked.

Zac looked down. They hadn't talked about this the night before, but he could just sense both Evie and Mimmi thinking about it. And like he and Mimmi agreed Evie could tell Mr. McLaren about them, Evie and Mimmi agreed about him needing to tell his parents the truth someday.

"I know. And my decision still hasn't changed."

Evie gave him a pointed look. "Are you sure?"

He nodded in the most categorical manner he could. "I'm sure."

Although she didn't agree with his decision, Evie still leaned toward him and kissed his shoulder through his shirt in a gesture of both acceptance and comfort. Zac felt some of the tension leaving him. This was one of the reasons he loved Evie. She didn't sweep things under the rug, but she didn't try to force him to do anything. She told him her opinion and tried to encourage him to do the right thing if she thought he was taking the wrong path, but she didn't hammer him until he broke and accepted when he didn't agree with her. And analytically, Zac knew Evie and Mimmi were right. He should tell his parents about his tail, about him being a born merman, and about having found a twin sister. But things had been difficult enough for all of them months ago when Zac found out he was adopted. He didn't want to think what it would be for them when they found out that the baby they had taken in hadn't ever been human.

As if all he'd needed to show up was Zac thinking about him, the door swung open and his father walked in.

"Good morning, kids," he said, as always not batting an eye at finding Evie with him first thing in the morning.

"'Morning, dad."

"Good morning, Doctor Blakely."

Without closing the door, his father walked toward their couch. "Well kids, Lauren sent me here to say that she saw Evie arriving, and in case she wants to join us for breakfast, she needs a bit of extra help if we are to still have breakfast rather than lunch."

Zac stood up. "Sure. I'll help."

His father nodded and started turning around to go back home, but Zac called him, "Dad, wait!" His father turned back around. "Evie needs to talk to you. So maybe you could stay here and talk to her while I go and help Mum with breakfast."

This time, his father did look a tad surprised, but after only an instant he nodded and said, "Alright."

Zac gave a brief smile to Evie, which she returned, and then walked out of the door to help his mom with breakfast, leaving Evie to ask his father the question he knew she had.

* * *

"So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?" Doctor Blakely asked once Zac closed the door behind him.

Evie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and spoke up. "I need to ask you something."

"It's not for us to let Zac ask your hand in marriage, is it?" Doctor Blakely joked. "We know you kids like one another, but we'd rather you waited until you ended university before you got married. We're not in that much of a hurry for grandkids."

Evie chuckled at the joke. "No, it's not that. It's about something else entirely."

She paused to steel herself, and then asked the question she'd wanted to ask since she had her idea to talk to him for help. "Do you remember telling me of a Doctor Colbert Thomas?"

His forehead creased as he tried to recall the moments Evie was speaking of.

"I think so," he replied. "But I'm not sure when I did or of what exactly I told you…" He shrugged. "Anyway, I do know very well who you're talking about. What do you want to know about him?"

Evie tried to think of the best way to ask her question. It would be a bit difficult to do this without mentioning Alana, and Evie would rather not do so in case Doctor Blakely talked to her father. She'd rather tell him about Alana herself, and not on the same day when he found out she was a mermaid.

"What exactly can you tell me about him?" Evie finally asked.

Doctor Blakely thought for a bit, running his forefinger along his chin.

"Well, for starters, he's pretty famous as far as doctors are concerned," he began. "He can go around the street unrecognized as far as I know, but basically every doctor I've met knows of him." He thought a bit more. "He's mostly known for his…" Doctor Blakely hesitated a bit, as if debating on whether to tell Evie the next piece of information, but then finished. "…experimental cancer treatments. Their success rate is considerably higher than that of just about any other experimental cancer treatment program I can think of."

"How much higher?" Evie asked. If it was too high, then one suspicion she'd had regarding him might have some grounds.

Again, Doctor Blakely thought a bit. "Considerably higher. I don't know exact figures, but I know a lot of the patients he treats live for quite longer than just about every other doctor in the field would give them, and he even healed a few that everyone thought were already beyond salvation. He's not making any kind of miracle cures, but those who call him the best in his field are probably right."

"Have his methods actually been studied by other experts?" Evie insisted. Doctor Blakely's words were basically echoing Alana's, but she still didn't know whether it was good or bad.

"Yes, they have," Doctor Blakely replied. "And just about everyone who cared to study them found out that they work. Some gossips do say that he cheats by treating patients who aren't anywhere near as sick as they reportedly are, and others say there's a whole team behind his medical success and he's actually a moron who should have stuck to male underwear modelling instead, but as far as I know those were all started by Harrison Bennett after a spat he and Colbert Thomas had."

Evie did know who Harrison Bennett was. Jodie and her friends from the swim team and basically every popular rich girl at school went to him to get nipped and tucked and drained of fat cells whenever they needed or wanted things of that sort, and at least one of them wouldn't have made it to the swim team without a liposuction at Harrison Bennett's clinic. It was their right, but speaking for herself, Evie hated both the idea of taking shortcuts like that and of having something so invasive put into her body. She might be unable to have abs like those of female athletes at sports' magazines, but she preferred that over spending fortunes on such surgeries. And she'd never needed them anyway. Even without that kind of physique, she'd been good enough at triathlon until she'd had to quit.

"Is there anything else you could tell me about him?" Evie prompted. "For instance, I heard he covers the treatments of those who enter his program. Is it true?"

Doctor Blakely nodded. "It is. No one knows for sure why, but he does at least offer to cover the treatments of anyone who enters his program. Sometimes people insist on paying him anyway, and he does accept when that happens, but many of the treatments he makes are paid out of his own pocket."

So that was also true. How could it be?

"Do you know how he affords it?"

Doctor Blakely thought for a few seconds, as if to make sure he didn't forget anything, and then said, "Thanks to a lot of things, apparently. It's a mix of a family inheritance, income from stock market investments, and donations." He paused as if to think if there was something more to say, and then added, "I heard something about him also diving for sunken treasures, but if that's true, I doubt he'd earn anywhere near enough for what he spends from that alone."

So everything Alana had said or implied about this Doctor Thomas was true. He was genuinely good at cancer treatment and was genuinely kind enough to cover his patients' expenses. It still seemed a little too good to be true, but all the signs were pointing to this being just one of those one-out-of-a-thousand occasions where something that seemed too good to be true was true anyway.

"Why are you asking so many questions about him, though?" Doctor Blakely's voice took on a concerned tone. "Does anyone you know have cancer?"

She raised a hand. "No, no. No one I know needs his treatments. I just heard about him, and there are a few questions I'd like to ask him."

"Why?" Doctor Blakely asked. "If you have any questions about medicine, I'm sure I could help you."

"It really has to be him," Evie insisted.

Doctor Blakely still seemed puzzled, but, to her relief, he nodded in acceptance. This was it. The one question she had really wanted to ask from the beginning.

"Is there any chance you can give me his address?"

Doctor Blakely mulled the matter over.

"Well, I don't know exactly where he lives, but I know he lives here in the Gold Coast, and it should be easy enough for me to find out the address. I'll probably have it by the end of the day, tomorrow at most."

"Thanks, Doctor Blakely," Evie said with a smile.

"You're welcome, Evie."

Evie thought he might ask her what it was she wanted to ask Doctor Thomas, but instead, he turned back toward the door. "Now I guess we'd better go and at least set the table or Lauren won't let us have breakfast as punishment."

Evie chuckled as the two of them walked out of the modified garage and toward the house.

It seemed her idea had been good. In a day at most she would know where to find this Doctor Thomas and ask her about Alana. While he might still not tell her where Alana had gone to, or even not know where she went, at least she was closer to finding her than she had been before.

All the same, she still hoped Alana would show up at the café of her own initiative. But after what she had seen yesterday, she had her doubts that would happen.

* * *

Seated at her dining room's table, Neelam downed the last gulp of seaweed juice in her glass, taking care not to have any drop slipping out through the corner of her mouth and running down her face. While she could easily dry herself with magic if she caused her tail to appear, it would still be a bit of a hurdle on her day that it was better to avoid.

With the glass empty, she picked it and her dish up and took them to the kitchen, right on time to see her mother levitating a dish from the stream of water under the faucet into the dishwasher with her magic, with her father standing beside her. He raised his finger to push the valve closed, but before he could, Neelam levitated both the dish and the glass to under the stream of water; he stopped his gesture once he saw them. Once both were rinsed, she moved them to the dishwasher, sliding both in without scratching them, and also without spilling any drop along the way, which would have caused hurdles similar to the one she would have gotten if she'd gotten seaweed juice on her skin.

"Good work, honey," her mother complimented.

"You know you would only have spent two extra seconds if you had come here and put those under the water with your hands, don't you?" her father teased.

Then, as if to prove a point, he pushed the valve closed with his hand in a slow dramatic gesture that in a movie would be done to epic music to look awesome.

"I know," Neelam replied. "But this way is more fun."

Her father chuckled, but made no contradicting comment. Then, her mother raised her and used her magic to slide the racks into the machine and shut it, the gesture contrasting with her father's manual action as much as her tanned skin, shoulder-length black hair, and brown eyes contrasted with his pale skin, short dark brown hair, and blue eyes.

"Now you're really just teasing me," her father stated.

"I know," her mother replied. "But you know you like watching me do magic."

Her father gave no verbal answer, but the smile on his face spoke for him.

"You're not going to start kissing, are you?" Neelam interjected.

Her mother turned to her. "What if we did?"

Neelam purposefully made the most disgusted and outraged face she could think of, but it was so over the top that it only got her parents to laugh, and a few seconds later, she joined in.

"Well, if you did, you'd better not get all holier-than-thou when I introduce you to my boyfriend," Neelam replied once the laughter died down.

Her father's face suddenly became more serious.

"We won't," her mother promised with a matching serious face. "We'll just shove him down onto our couch and make sure he knows what awaits him if he mistreats you in any manner."

Neelam tried to take it in stride, as well as to keep the sadness that reared up inside her from showing on her face. At the rate things were going, she most likely would never have a boyfriend. She knew she couldn't blame her parents; unlike many of those in land people's television, they actually had reasons to be so protective. If she trusted the wrong person with her tail, it would be the end.

Her father introduced a different topic, "So, what are you going to do today?"

Neelam shrugged. "I'm not sure. I think I may go and visit Alana, but I'm not sure how much longer I can be with her without telling her I'm a mermaid when I know she also is one."

At this topic, her mother's face did change into a more sympathetic expression. Her father's, however, remained stern.

"I already told you more times than I cared to count," he said. "Alana is a born mermaid; you can't tell her anything. If she was just a land girl who had fallen into a moon pool, I'd have let you tell her on the first day we learned about it. But she isn't."

Neelam tried not to groan. They'd had this kind of conversation so many times that it looked like one of those whitings with their tails in their mouths; a vicious circle that always went around without ever getting anywhere. And her mother, more sympathetic to her plight though she might be, agreed with her father's misgivings.

"Isn't there really any way we can find out if it's safe to tell Alana?" Neelam insisted. "Just because she's a born mermaid she doesn't have to be psychotic."

If only Praveer hadn't left already. He hadn't become as close to Alana as her, but Neelam knew he would also like the idea of having a friend from whom he didn't have to hide his tail. He'd most likely spout endless mock-complaints about now having two little sisters to babysit, but Neelam could live with that if she finally had a friend.

"It's safer like this," her father said. "The risk we would take is too great for all of us."

"Please," Neelam begged. "I miss having a friend."

Her father sighed; and even he looked at her in sympathy at that. Neelam knew he didn't have a heart of stone, but for someone who actually could sympathize with her problem more than her mother, he was proving much more stubborn when it came to helping her than he could.

"Colbert…" her mother said.

"Tanushri…" her father replied as he looked her mother in the eye.

She could sense his exasperated tone, but the fact that for once her mother had said a word in support of her meant they were closer to victory. Her father tried to return to his stern face, but this time, it seemed he just couldn't. Neelam didn't hold out hope, though. He'd said more than once that he understood her longing for a friend, and Neelam had no doubt that he did; he just was turning out to be too stubborn when it came to safety. She did know his fears weren't groundless after what those mermaids had done to Alana, but now she also knew that that other mermaid Alana had swum off with had seemed to be friendly with her. Sure, she couldn't tell that to her parents without them finding out where she had gone without permission and scolding her for it, but at least she knew, which counted for something.

"There must be some way," Neelam tried to insist, hopefully not sounding too childish.

Her father kept making efforts to reassume his stern face, but in seconds they crumbled like a sand castle under a tidal wave.

"Alright," he said with a calm face and an even voice. "If you manage to think of a reliably safe way to find out what kind of mermaid Alana is regarding her openness to those like us, we'll talk about this again. But keep in mind, I do mean a reliably safe way."

Neelam nodded, a wide smile on her face. She had no idea of what he meant by a 'reliably safe way' – he'd shot down at least six that Neelam thought met those standards – but it was the first time he had proved open to discussing the issue.

"Thanks, dad!" With those words, she ran forward and hugged him.

He hugged her back, chuckling.

When the hug ended, he said, "You know, when I was out collecting samples yesterday, I saw a few humpbacked dolphins in the area. Your mother and I are going back there for more today, and I know for a fact those dolphins are of the playful sort. Do you want to come with us in case they're still around?"

Neelam nodded eagerly, both out of happiness after her father's reconsideration and out of looking forward to the swim. She loved swimming with dolphins, and she knew through her mother that most mermaids felt the same. And she had only seen humpbacked dolphins twice before. Both occasions had been unforgettable. She'd love to swim with them again if she could.

But then she picked up on something odd in her father's words.

"Isn't mom going to work today?"

"I had to change my day off with Annie yesterday," her mother explained. "So I get a Monday off instead."

Right. Praveer had told her when she arrived yesterday that her mother had gone to the pharmacy. At the time she'd been too relieved to notice, but later she had realized her mother wasn't meant to have worked that Sunday. Apparently that was why.

"Alright then," Neelam agreed. "Let's collect more stuff for research and hopefully get to meet the dolphins along the way."

And with luck, think of some solution to find out what kind of mermaid Alana was regarding her beliefs. Maybe if they met the dolphins, Neelam could ask them to try to find out. Sure, Alana might not be the kind of mermaid that liked swimming with dolphins, or the one that liked dolphins but didn't know their language, or the dolphins might not be there, or they might not agree to Neelam's request, or never manage to find Alana even if they did agree.

But still, it seemed better than doing nothing. And after all, she did know where Alana was staying. In the worst case scenario, she could still visit her, even if she couldn't tell her the truth about herself.

* * *

As he had agreed to, Doug McLaren arrived to Rainbow's Point on his dive boat and with his diving gear at ten o'clock, more nervous than he had been since his idea of starting dive tours to Mako Island, but also more than ready to get this whole mess over with. After trying for month after month to figure out the reason for his daughter's strange behaviour without reaching a single solid conclusion, he wanted to finally know the answer for her behaviour.

She had told him it was nothing illegal or harmful to her health, and in spite of his worries, Doug believed her. He had paid as much attention to her appearance and behaviour as he possibly could, and she didn't look particularly sick or scared. She hadn't lost weight, she didn't have bags under her eyes, she wasn't always jumpy as if she thought anyone was permanently keeping an eye on her, she hadn't made any change to her routine... all in all, she seemed basically the same.

But her having stopped to dive was just too odd. Doug knew how much Evie loved it, and as far as he knew nothing had happened to justify her quitting. She hadn't had any accident, and as far as the loss of interest he had suggested to Zac on Evie's seventeenth birthday… it was too sudden to justify it. A loss of interest was presumably gradual. Evie had just quit completely overnight.

And her avoiding water in general was even stranger. She now made it a point to wear gloves when she rinsed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, or when she took them out to put them away after they were clean. She seemed to avoid even washing her hands in front of him. She hadn't even picked up the miniature diver he had found for her to put it in the fish bowl.

At least her avoidance of water wasn't complete. Doug knew she had bought a thirty gallon tank for Luke (the name she had given the fish) the day after her birthday, and that she changed its water regularly, and he also knew she still took baths. But he'd never actually seen her change the tank's water, and her moving from showers to baths seemed weird when she had been the one telling him that showers were faster to take, spent less water, and spent less power to heat it up.

Even odder was how it mirrored Zac's behaviour. Also overnight, he'd quit his job as a lifeguard, had stopped going for swims, had, from what he knew, behaved oddly at the surprise pool party Evie had thrown for him, seemed to look for excuses to avoid the camping trips with his father to Mako…

Youngsters these days seemed to think adults were morons, but Doug, as well as Rob and Lauren, had noticed a lot of things about their kids, even if they didn't always bring them up.

Doug's only consolation was that, unless Evie had changed her mind, which he didn't think she would do, he would know the answer to this strangeness soon. And although he hadn't told anything to Rob and Lauren yet, he would do so after Evie told him what this was all about. Zac might be adopted, but, during the years he'd spent fostering children, Doug had known of parents who didn't love their children half as much as Rob and Lauren loved Zac. It wouldn't be right for him to finally be at peace while Rob and Lauren had to remain worried and hurt over their son's distancing from them.

A strange sound, as if that of a dolphin surfacing, came from the boat's port side.

"Dad?"

Doug stood up and looked around. Strange. He could swear he had heard Evie calling for him. But he hadn't seen or heard any boat arriving.

He must be imagining things from how eager he was to learn the truth.

"Dad!"

Doug looked around in search of Evie's voice. This time it mustn't have been imagination… but she was nowhere to be seen!

"I'm down here!"

Down here? But that couldn't be! This place was almost thirty kilometres from land! Evie couldn't possibly have swam here in such little time, there was no boat of her own nearby, and his daughter had too much sense to just ask any boat to drop her off in the middle of the ocean!

"Look down!"

Screw strangeness, he definitely wasn't dreaming! He looked over the boat's port side… and sure enough, there was Evie, treading water less than a metre from his boat.

"Evie?"

Had she been dumb enough to ask any boat to drop her off in the middle of the ocean after all? But where was her diving gear? And… what was that strange scaly top she was wearing?

There were a thousand questions wanting to rush out of his mouth, and they all stumbled over themselves as he spoke up.

"But… how… why… you…" Doug managed to stammer.

Evie looked at him in sympathy and nervousness, as if she was afraid of saying whatever she had to say. Then, she took her deep breath and, in a tone similar to one she had used once, when she confessed she broke the vase he gave Sarah, she said,

"I'm a mermaid."

Then, before Doug could say anything else, she raised a thick, scaly and very real orange-golden tail above the water's surface.

* * *

 **So... here is this story's longest chapter yet, as well as its first cliffhanger.**

 **And my fancasting for the two new characters introduced in this chapter.**

 **Tanushri Thomas - Parminder Nagra (who played Areida in Ella Enchanted and Meera Malik in The Blacklist)**

 **Colbert Thomas - Bernard Curry (who played Hugo Austin in Home and Away and Liam Jones in Once Upon A Time)**

 **As for the more thorough explanation regarding the change from Saturday to Sunday in the first chapter, it is because, like I said in the note I added to the first chapter's beginning, I made a mistake in regards to the day of the week in which the full moon I was thinking of was. I thought it had been on a Saturday, but it was on a Sunday. It may not seem worth changing things over, but as I am trying to make one for the shows (both H2O and Mako Mermaids) I thought I should correct it. The timeline is a bit of a difficult effort, and I am having to make a few 'minor concessions' due to incoherences in the series, but I still feel it helps with organization matters. Please forgive me for my mix-up.**

 **I hope you've enjoyed the chapter... and again, I'll try not to take too long with the next update.**


	5. Chapter 5: Revealed Merpeople

**I'm sorry for the delay in getting this chapter updated, but there were a few scenes I had a few problems working out. Even now, I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but I'm also already at a point where I may never post it if I keep tweaking it.**

 **So here it is. I hope you enjoy it.**

* * *

 **Chapter 5 – Revealed Merpeople**

Doug sagged like an empty sack at what he saw. As if having a mind of their own, his arms grabbed the railing to steady him, but he remained hollow and paralysed at the sight of his daughter swimming in the water with a mermaid tail about a metre from his boat.

This just wasn't possible! Mermaids didn't exist! They were mythical creatures that had been terrifying beyond measure until Hans Christian Andersen had written a story with a mermaid as a protagonist, and later became even friendlier to the mainstream public when Disney made its own adaptation of Andersen's story, complete with sequels, TV series, and a whole franchise. Sure, there had been returns to sinister portrayals, like that fourth _Pirates Of The Caribbean_ movie, but whether benign or dangerous, mermaids were fictional! The idea that any of them could exist, much less that his daughter had somehow become one of them – because she certainly hadn't been born that way – was preposterous!

The closest things to mermaids in real life were those actresses who put on tails and trained breath holding to play the role, or manatees like those he and Evie had seen when they had gone diving in Florida two years ago. Granted, he had once been part of an incident related to a real life mermaid, at that Queen of the Sea contest he had taken Evie to see when she was eleven. After all the contestants ended up soaked by a hose, a girl had claimed there were evil dangerous mermaids on the Gold Coast (one of which was her sister) and had tried to prove it by handling the tail of the contestant in the mermaid outfit (an event that he distinctly remembered a girl sitting close to him and Evie proclaiming as the one interesting part of the contest). Doug had been less than impressed both by how the girl had seemingly bought what had to be very stupid lies about mermaids and how she hadn't seemed to care than if whatever she'd heard was real her sister would be locked up and chopped into raw hamburger to be studied. And of course, the tail she had handled had turned out to be a costume – just like Evie's had to be, in spite of how much it didn't look like a fake.

How ironic. Six years ago, he'd taken Evie to see a contest about sea creatures and ended up seeing a girl who believed that a mermaid tail that was clearly a costume was real, and now Evie was before him in a mermaid tail that looked very much real but simply _had_ to be a costume.

Doug shook his head to clear those thoughts. Ironic or not, it didn't matter. Anything related to real-life mermaids had motives that started at wild imaginations, went through things such as light-headedness from loss of conscience while almost-drowning and metaphors for actresses who put on mermaid tails to play such a role, and ended in excessive booze.

And yet… ridiculous though it might seem, Doug couldn't help but think that having become a mermaid explained a lot about Evie's behaviour – and Zac having become a merman would also explain Zac's, now that he thought of it. Interruption of water-related activities, avoiding even touching water, sudden secrecy regarding all sorts of things, no longer swimming at all unless it was with one another… for how outlandish it was, it made too much sense now that he knew it.

 _Are you listening to yourself?_ A voice shouted at the back of his mind. _Why are you trying to reason such a thing? Merpeople don't exist!_

Doug couldn't help but agree with the voice, which dictated facts he had known as true for all his life… and yet at the same time he knew the voice was wrong. Other than it explaining Evie's – and Zac's – recent behaviour, there was one other, more important factor: Evie wouldn't do this to him. He knew his daughter; she wouldn't be crazy enough to just ask anyone to drop her off in the middle of the ocean with a cumbersome costume and no way to quickly get to land so she could rest if she needed, or cruel enough to pull a prank like this on him.

His strength slowly returning, Doug managed to utter, "How can this be?"

A shy, almost cautious look on her face, Evie said, "If you let me get onto the boat, I can explain."

Why would she offer to get onto the boat? Being with a fish tail, she would likely be more comfortable in the water.

Great. Just ten seconds after believing that mermaids existed he was already starting to rationalize their behaviours. And he didn't know whether to be proud of it or utterly baffled by such a fact.

"Sure. Come aboard." Doug said before his mind could start wandering down other strange paths.

He reached his right hand out to Evie to pull her aboard, but she waved it away.

"You'd better not try to do that. I'm heavier in this form than in my human one."

With that said, she went under again, but remained more than close enough to the surface for Doug to see her swimming with her arms stretched in front of her and moving her tail up and down like a dolphin in spite of it having scales like a fish's.

It was a short swim that stopped at the dive platform, where Evie heaved herself onto it from the port side. Once she was completely out of the water, Doug could see how thick the tail actually was, not to mention that it was longer than Evie's legs. A lot of it had to be muscle, and it would indeed make her heavier.

With all of her lying across the platform, Evie rolled onto her back, raised her upper half off of the dive platform, held her hand above her tail, and slowly clenched it into a fist. Within seconds, Doug heard a hissing sound, and steam started to rise from her body. What was she doing?

Over the next half minute or so, the cloud of steam continued to grow… and then, with a strange sound whose nature Doug couldn't readily identify, Evie was back to her old self. She was wearing the same lozenge pattern top, denim shorts, and grey converse she had been wearing when he last saw her this morning, and her hair was as combed as if it had never been wet.

"What was that?" Doug managed to utter, having to make a conscious effort to keep his jaw from dropping.

Evie smiled timidly as she stood up. "Magic."

Right. Magic. Because Evie being a mermaid hadn't been a big enough surprise. She could also do magic. But then again, given how could she not have become a mermaid without magic to make it happen in the first place, was it really that big of a surprise in the end?

Doug drove those thoughts away as he walked to the boat's port bench. Now wasn't the time for them, but to listen to what Evie had to say. And once he did, he'd probably know the answers to all those questions anyway.

"Well, you said you could explain…" Doug managed as he sat down. "I'm ready to listen."

A nervous look on her face, Evie came to sit down beside him, and began speaking.

* * *

Ondina first noticed him almost by accident, when a woman in her thirties wearing a white top and jeans asked her for a strawberry popsicle and a blueberry one, a boy of about ten standing beside her. Ondina had spotted him, a young man around her age with light brown hair and pale skin in a marine park uniform, standing about thirty metres away, seemingly looking at her. At the time, she didn't think about him for more than a moment and collected the woman's request from inside her cart. But after the woman paid her too much money and she had to give her change, she noticed he was still looking at her, as if he hadn't stopped doing so since she last saw him.

And as she noticed that, she couldn't help but look back. Whatever it was he was trying to do to her, she wouldn't allow it. But apparently her intimidating glare wasn't that impressive over long distances, or maybe he just had a solid backbone, because he looked at her just as intensely as she at him.

All the same, she kept her own glare. But for all the efforts she made to intensify it, he wouldn't look away. Well, she wouldn't either.

"Hey, what about my change?" the woman demanded, while the boy beside her already slurped eagerly at his strawberry popsicle.

Ondina shook as if she had snapped awake from a trance.

"Right. Sorry." She gave the woman her change. "Enjoy your popsicles!"

The woman scowled at her as she walked away, as if having to wait a few extra seconds for her change was comparable to being insulted. Ondina repressed a scowl of her own. One of this job's downsides was that she had to be nice to all clients, even if they were utter jerks.

And that guy was still staring at her. So Ondina resumed her staring duel with him. She wouldn't turn her eyes away from his just like that.

"That's him," her best friend's voice said from her left.

Ondina would know without having to look that it was Mimmi to had spoken, and also that she had just walked over from her cart, which today had been parked just two metres to the left of hers. Still, in spite of her unwillingness to look away from this guy for almost any other motive, she turned toward Mimmi without hesitation.

"You mean the guy that was looking at you weirdly yesterday?" the curly-haired mermaid asked. "The one you said seemed to know what you are?"

Mimmi nodded. "The very one."

Ondina gave him a closer look. Staring aside, there seemed to be nothing special about this guy. He was a bit taller than Zac, with a muscular build, pale skin, and light brown hair in a buzz cut. He probably had blue or green eyes, but he was too far away for Ondina to confirm that. She'd seen plenty of land boys who looked similar enough to him, just like there were plenty of blond mermaids with blue eyes. But the fact he was staring at the two of them in a way that conveyed he had some sort of interest or even fixation in them was not normal.

"I see why you were worried," Ondina told Mimmi. This time, she merely looked at her friend out of the corner of her eye. "There's something off-putting about him."

Her friend didn't reply, her own eyes now also locked on the guy who had been staring at them.

"I've never seen him before," Ondina added. "Who is he?"

"I don't know," Mimmi replied. Then, her eyes locked on a place at Ondina's right, as if she'd just found something or someone she was looking for. "But I know how to find out."

Ondina turned on the same direction Mimmi was looking at, and saw Doctor Ross and Rita walking in their general direction, the older mermaid with her purse slung over her left shoulder, and the marine park director carrying what looked like one of Rita's file folders.

"Rita?" Ondina almost shouted. "What are you doing here?"

The redhead raised an eyebrow, perplexed either at the question or at the way Ondina had asked it.

"I'm having a meeting with Doctor Ross…" she replied in an unusually hesitant voice.

Right. How silly of her. Although Rita and Doctor Ross had not been meeting as frequently as before since that marine biology elective had started, they still did so on occasion, although Ondina thought they met just a little too frequently for the kind of thing they were handling. Granted, she still knew next to nothing about how land school worked, but it was just a feeling she had. It almost seemed as if they were, in a sense, looking for excuses to be together, but Ondina had no idea why they would be doing that. If they were her or Mimmi's age, she would think they were dating, but both Rita and Doctor Ross were too old for dating, so that was out of the question. So why would they want to be together so often?

"You're not in too much of a hurry, are you?" Mimmi interjected before Ondina could ask any of her questions.

Rita turned to Doctor Ross for an answer, and he in turn consulted his wristwatch.

"We still have some time," he replied. "Why?"

"If you don't mind, there's something I'd like to ask you," Mimmi explained.

The wrinkles on Doctor Ross' forehead deepened in confusion, but he said, "Of course, Mimmi. What is it?"

Mimmi turned toward the guy who had been staring at her and Ondina and raised her left arm; Ondina noticed she took care not to actually point with her finger due to land people finding it rude.

"Who is he?" Mimmi asked. "I've never seen him around here before."

Doctor Ross' eyes lit up in understanding. He replied, "Oh, that's Gunnar. He only started working here yesterday." Before Mimmi could thank him for his explanation, he added, "I'll introduce you."

Then, without giving anyone time to stop him, he raised his arm and beckoned the boy – Gunnar – toward him with his hand. Ondina saw nervousness flash across his face before he jogged over to them.

When he finally approached, Ondina could see that his eyes were green; for whatever reason, that only made her even more wary of him.

"What is ze matter, Doctorr Ross?" Gunnar asked in a weird accent that conveyed he wasn't from Australia. "Am I in trrouble alrready on my second day?"

Doctor Ross raised his hands in reassurance. "No, not at all. You've been doing a good job, I reckon. I'd just like to introduce you to some people."

"Oh," Gunnar uttered, a surprised look on his face. Still, the surprise lasted only a few seconds before he deflated. "Zat's alrright zen."

With that, Doctor Ross turned right so that he was standing perpendicularly to Gunnar and the row formed by Ondina, Mimmi, and Rita.

"Gunnar, these are Mimmi and Ondina, and Rita Santos, Principal of Suncoast High," Doctor Ross explained, gesturing at each of them with his hand. "Mimmi, Ondina, Miss Santos, this is Gunnar, our new tour guide."

Mimmi and Rita had looks of amazement on their faces that echoed what Ondina was feeling.

"Isn't he a bit young for that?" Ondina asked, not bothering to sound casual.

Mimmi and Rita gave her reproachful looks, but Ondina ignored it. Her question had been perfectly valid. And Doctor Ross took it in stride as he explained, "I would have thought the same, but there was an open spot for a tour guide, he applied… and let's just say he turned out to know more than enough about the sea to be the best candidate. And he had a good first day yesterday, so he seems to have been a good choice."

"Thank you for ze compliment, Doctorr Ross," Gunnar said.

Ondina held back a glare at the marine park director. His wanting a good candidate for this tour guide job looked like it had gotten them on quite a bit of trouble, if this Gunnar's looks were anything to go by.

On a rational level, she knew he wasn't to blame; he was just looking for someone to work the job at the marine park, and he had no way to know Gunnar would make her and Mimmi uncomfortable or look like he might want to get them into trouble. But Doctor Ross might still have gotten them into quite a mess unintentionally – which in a sense was almost worse than him having done it on purpose. If he'd done it on purpose, Ondina could get angry at him and retaliate without any problem. With it being an accident, and Doctor Ross being a good man, she couldn't even get angry at him or do anything without feeling guilty.

"You know enough to be a tour guide at an aquarium at your age?" Ondina asked. "I wonder how you learned so much."

Gunnar shrugged. "I'm surre you'd find ze answerr in yourr own backgrrounds."

He looked at all of them as he said that, but the way his gaze lingered first on Rita, then on Ondina, and lastly on Mimmi made the blond mermaid realize her friend might be telling the truth: he likely knew what they were. And if he wasn't telling, either he had something to lose or something to gain.

"Why would you say that?" Ondina demanded.

Gunnar shrugged, and then posited, "Well, zerre arre only so many ways to learrn, arren't zerre?" He leaned a bit closer to them. "Especially when it comes to learrning cerrtain zings."

"And just what ways did you use?" Mimmi at last spoke up, her arms folded and her eyes narrowed at him.

He stood straighter and seemed to back away a bit. It seemed Mimmi made him wary. He might have had no problems blatantly looking at her, but apparently he wasn't keen on an open confrontation.

"Well, I had good teacherrs, I looked forr knowledge myself, and I got hands-on experrience," he replied. "Some of zose experriences have been trruly magical, to be honest."

Ondina's skin started to crawl at the allusion this Gunnar was clearly making. She hid it by putting her hands on her hips and demanding, "Really?"

"Rreally," Gunnar replied with a smirk. "And if I may say so, maybe we should have a study session togezerr someday. I'm surre it would be an unforrgetable experrience."

"We'll see," Mimmi replied beside Ondina, sending a glare of her own at the boy.

Gunnar stood before them with his arms folded, encompassing the three mermaids with a threatening look belied by the fact his forearms twitched as if he had to force them to remain rigid. Either his previous behaviour had been pure bluster or he had just now realized how he had bitten off more than he could chew.

"Well, introductions have been made," Doctor Ross finally interjected. "So if you would all please get back to your jobs…"

Although he spoke in general terms, he only looked at Gunnar as he said it; apparently he also had noticed something off about the boy even though – or maybe because – he'd been the only one whom Gunnar had been ignoring. And something about the usual sternness of his gaze seemed to add a warning to his words.

"Of courrse," Gunnar agreed. "I have a tourr grroup arriving in ten minutes anyway."

This time, he gave them a look that encompassed all four of them.

"I hope you all have a good day," he said, somehow managing to give Doctor Ross a genuine look while also giving each of the three mermaids a threatening one.

With that, he turned back and walked away, presumably to wherever he was meeting the tour group. Ondina kept her eyes locked on him until he vanished, as if her subconscious wanted her to make sure he actually wouldn't turn around and resume his stares or start spying on them.

Once he was out of sight, Rita turned to Doctor Ross.

"Would you mind leaving me and my nieces alone?" she requested. "I need to talk to them."

"Of course, Miss Santos," Doctor Ross replied. "And I'm sorry for any problems I may have caused," he added, his voice lower and with a few notes of remorse.

"It's not your fault, Doctor Ross," Rita said with a comforting smile. It seemed to go a bit against the usual land people stance of professionalism and distancing, but Ondina might be missing something; she still hadn't been on land for as long as Rita after all.

Doctor Ross smiled as well in what seemed a mix of relief, gratefulness, and regret at his mistake, and then walked away. As he did, Ondina felt her own anger at him soften a bit. Like Rita had said, it hadn't been his fault, and for what was worth, he'd stepped up to defend them, even though he didn't have any idea of who or what he truly was defending.

It was weird that he'd smile at Rita like that, though. She'd get it if they were dating, but again, they were too old to date, or to even think about dating to begin with.

Rita's voice broke through her thoughts.

"I doubt either of you truly needs me to give this warning, but be very careful around Gunnar," she said, sounding more gravely than she had since the day Erik had stolen Zac's powers with the trident stone. "There's something really suspicious about him."

She was right. Neither of them truly needed the warning; they had come to that conclusion on their own. Still, it was a relief to know Rita was aware of how serious things were.

"Ondina mentioned he might be a merman," Mimmi piped in. "Do you think she's right?"

Rita turned to look at her, her eyes wider than usual and with clear alarm emanating from them.

"Why do you think he's a merman?" Rita asked in a voice that seemed rather strangled by fear.

"Yesterday Mimmi said that it looks like he knows what we are, which I agree with after today" Ondina replied. "I said that the only reason I could think of for him not to tell our secret if he does know it is that he is a merman."

Rita thought about it for several seconds, her hand clutching her purse's straps, and her eyes lost in the distance.

"Well, he does look like he knows what we are, and he did make some peculiar allusions when he was talking to us, so the possibility that he's a merman isn't far-fetched in the least," Rita finally said. "And if that's so, I want you to be doubly careful around him. If he really is a merman, I doubt he'll try to blow our cover, but he's not coming across as the friendly kind of merman so far, so it's better to be safe than sorry. If he is not a merman and was just saying those things to bait us, then we have all the more reason to be cautious around him, because the first thing he may do when he's in danger or if he decides it's convenient is to blow our secret."

A shiver like those she felt when she dove too deep too fast went through Ondina at those words. After what had happened with Erik, she hadn't ever wanted to see another merman besides Zac, but after the possibility Rita had pointed out, she found herself hoping with all her strength that Gunnar was a merman. At least that way he would have to keep the mermaid secret for his own sake, like Rita had pointed out.

"Is there any chance he might actually not know anything of what he implied and simply be a regular slime-ball who is trying to get us scared just to have fun?" Mimmi suggested.

Ondina still wasn't as familiar with land people's vocabulary as Mimmi seemed to have become, but she could infer enough from the context to guess that her friend was asking if Gunnar was simply an ordinary bastard who'd been trying to scare them for amusement. She could not guess why Mimmi would think that, though, especially because she was the one who had first said he seemed to know she was a mermaid.

"Is there any reason for your change in opinion?" Ondina inquired. "You're the one who said he seemed to know what we are."

"I'm just trying to consider every possibility," Mimmi explained.

Ondina turned to Rita to see what she thought about that. She knew just from looking at the older mermaid's face that she found it unlikely, but she still wanted to hear what the school principal had to say.

"It's not impossible," she acknowledged. "But Doctor Ross did say Gunnar knew enough about the sea to get the job as a tour guide at such a young age, and Doctor Ross isn't easy to impress in that regard. Even if Gunnar is not a merman, he is someone who knows a lot about the sea, and what he told us might as well have been a direct confirmation that he knows mermaids exist."

Ondina said nothing to that. Speaking for herself, she still hoped Gunnar was a merman. It was the only way she could think of that would ensure that he wouldn't tell anything about them.

Then Rita's eyes widened as if she had suddenly remembered something, and she looked at her own wristwatch. When she looked back up at them, she said, "We need to talk more about this, but right now I do have that meeting with Doctor Ross to get to, so I'd better be going." Right. If Rita was late for the meeting Doctor Ross could ask questions, which would only add another problem to their list. "Be careful… and try to have the best day you can." Rita finished.

 _As if._ Ondina thought as Rita turned around. Even if they didn't see Gunnar again, he'd already managed to ruin her day.

"Good luck for the meeting!" Mimmi said as Rita started walking in the same direction Doctor Ross had taken.

 _Luck._ Ondina thought. _That might be what we need. Luck._

Yes. What they needed was definitely luck, and plenty of it at that.

And with luck, Gunnar would indeed be a merman. If he was one, they would know how to deal with him. There was no more trident, there was no more merman chamber, the pod was back, and they were no longer fighting Zac. Mermen might be powerful, but a single merman couldn't stand against a pod of over a hundred mermaids and another merman. So if Gunnar was a merman, they shouldn't have many problems handling him.

If he wasn't… things could get trickier.

So the first thing they needed to do was to know how to approach the situation. To learn that, they had to figure out if Gunnar was a merman or not.

And Ondina thought she already had a few ideas on how to do it.

* * *

Evie couldn't have guessed how long it took to tell her father everything she promised herself she would tell. She guessed it must have been quite some time, given all the things she told her father out of her own volition joined all the questions he asked her along the way. But at the same time, once she started speaking, time seemed to fly by.

She tried her best to start at the point where she got her tail, which was when she swam into the moon pool because she was worried about what might be happening to Zac in there. But when her father asked why Zac would be in the moon pool, she had to explain about Zac having gotten a tail of his own (or rather, recovered it) seven months before she got hers, and how born mermaids were not fond of mermen at all, which had led to a mermaid using a potion to try and take Zac's tail away, but which instead had ended up making it so that her own could never be removed, even by another dose of the same potion. And then, when her father expressed concern about what had happened to that mermaid, she had to tell him about how the mermaid had turned out to be Zac's long lost sister, and how they had found out thanks to the gift of shared visions this mermaid and Zac had, which was only possible thanks to their blood ties, and how family closeness had eventually triumphed over their conflict.

At first, it looked like it wouldn't be too difficult to keep her promise of only telling him about Zac and Mimmi, but then her father started asking a lot of questions, and also started guessing a lot of answers without Evie having to tell him anything.

He guessed there had been a mermaid pod living at Mako Island before Zac became a merman. He guessed that they left after Zac became a merman due to mermen being considered dangerous by mermaids. He guessed that Ondina, Sirena, and Mimmi were also mermaids, and that Mimmi was Zac's sister. Most shocking of all, he guessed that Erik was also a merman.

And he managed to guess so much more that Evie ended up having to tell him all the truth, including the bits she had really hoped to avoid, such as when she had almost drowned in the infinite water chamber and how she had been personally involved in a conflict with a power-hungry merman who wanted to activate a magical chamber that did nothing but drain the magic of mermaids to the point it would kill them, although it somehow failed to affect her. By that point, her father had looked like he was about to faint.

It had made Evie feel dreadfully guilty, both for putting her father through so much and for telling so many things she had promised she would keep to herself. But she had known from the beginning she would be going beyond the point of no return if she told her father about her tail, and in the end, he had just guessed so much that Evie would have no way around her current situation other than telling more lies. It had been difficult enough to lie to her father when he didn't know about her tail, but now that he did, Evie couldn't just exchange one series of lies for another.

Hopefully Sirena, Ondina, Rita, Nixie, Lyla and the pod would forgive her.

"And that's about the gist of it," Evie finally said after her final explanation on how the merman chamber had thankfully been deactivated for good.

Her father sat on the bench with his eyes on the horizon, all too similar to what she had seen some people with seasickness doing when they were trying not to throw up. He was slightly less pale than he had been a few seconds ago, but the way his throat pulsed and the fact he failed to blink started to worry her.

"Well, there's very little 'gist' about all that," her father finally managed to utter.

The corners of his mouth were turned upwards and his voice had a few notes of humour, but the stiffness on his face suggested it was all forced, as if he was trying to feel anything but numbing awe.

"I know," Evie sympathized. "It's a lot to take in. I had the same problem when I learned Zac was a merman."

Her father did not look any happier at her statement. He did have some colour back on his face, and he was blinking again, but he kept staring at the horizon in a way that made Evie's heart clench.

She wished she could say something, but any words that came to her seemed empty. Apologies were not to be handed around like spare change, justifications were a way of trying to pass on guilt, and she couldn't think of any explanation that would cover why she hadn't trusted him without disappointing him further.

At last, her father took a deep breath, and turned right to look at her. He seemed to have aged several years while he stared at the horizon, his wrinkles deeper and his hair thinner and greyer.

"Why couldn't you have told me before?" Her father whispered. "From the moment you got your tail, I mean? I could have helped you with this from the beginning."

Evie's throat tied itself into a knot. His quiet disappointment and reassurance he would have been there for her if she had only let him hurt like a stab wound. Shouting and anger would have been easy to deal with by comparison. At least then maybe she wouldn't have felt so bad for keeping this from him for as long as he did.

Her only consolation, minor though it might be, was that at least he had been spared from Erik's wrath by not knowing about the secret. If her father had known then, Erik likely wouldn't have hesitated to torture him with his magic like he had done to Cam. But even that did little to alleviate her guilt over keeping it from him, not to mention that him not knowing wouldn't have put him in less danger. If Erik had felt he needed to do so, he might well have tortured or kidnapped her father even though he'd be revealing himself as a merman, just to see if she or Zac would crack and give him the trident stone in exchange for her father's safety.

Her father kept looking at her for an answer that Evie knew she had to give. In an effort to loosen her throat, she took a deep breath, and then willed herself to speak.

"At first I was too much in denial about the reality of it and kept hoping for it to fade before it did any significant damage." Evie finally uttered. "Then I was too afraid of what you would think about me to tell you."

She looked down in embarrassment, unable to meet her father's eyes, her heart clenching even tighter. She hadn't felt like this in years, since a day about two months after her mother's death, when she broke her mother's special vase, the one her father had given to her. It had been the only time in her life she had been afraid her father would hit her.

The boat rocked underneath her, each sway feeling like an invisible voice hammering her to look back at her father. Eventually, Evie did. Her father now had an understanding look in his eyes.

"I can't say I don't see where you're coming from," he acknowledged. "But you could have told me. I confess I probably would have felt as taken aback as I do now… but I would have helped you with this as well as I could." A suddenly serious look on his face, he asked, "Did I ever give you any reason to be afraid of me?"

Evie raised her hand to appease him.

"No, you didn't," she reassured. "And other than the time I broke the vase you gave mum, I never was afraid of you." And even then her fear had been groundless. Her father had scolded her, but hadn't hit her or even shouted at her. "But…" Evie searched her brain for any magical words that could convey everything she wanted to say, but all that came out was, "But this is all so out there that I just went with my first instincts, and eventually I couldn't do anything but keep doing so – until I was unable to keep it from you, that is."

She looked down again, the shame returning to her.

"I'm sorry for disappointing you."

This time, she only looked at the boat's deck for a few seconds before she turned her eyes back to her father. He still had the understanding look on his face, but a few hints of sadness had returned.

"I won't lie, Evie. I'm sad about the troubled months we had to go through because of this secret."

So was she. Knowing she could have spared her father all the sadness she put him through had been bad enough while she was doing it, but knowing he would have been supportive now made it seem even worse in hindsight.

"But like I said, I understand why you felt like you did, and why you kept it from me." He cracked a smile. "After all, this is pretty out there."

Evie cracked a smile of her own, her heart finally loosening up. That had to be the biggest understatement she had ever heard for the existence of mermaids.

Her father's smile growing, he put his right hand on her shoulders and said, "And I'm very glad you found it in yourself to tell me."

Evie couldn't help what followed. Her face lit up in a grin, and she engulfed her father in the tightest hug she had given him in years. He grunted at the suddenness of it, but Evie felt him hugging her back just as tightly.

The hug seemed to go on and on, yet when it ended, Evie felt it hadn't lasted as long as it ought to have.

She also felt a bit guilty for what she was about to say, but there were a few things that she knew she had to get across from the beginning.

"I know this probably doesn't need to be said, but you can't tell anyone about this, dad," she said, trying to muster her most serious face and tone for that sentence.

Her father didn't flinch at her tone or at her words.

"I may not always have the best eye for business, Evie, but I'm still smart enough to know how the world in general works," he replied. "I know very well that if anyone found out about this every mermaid that humans managed to get their hands on would end up in a tank to be ogled at like a common animal or in a laboratory table to be cut open with a scalpel. I don't want to be responsible for that."

Evie had been sure from the beginning that he would say something like that, but still, upon finally hear him say it, her whole body seemed to loosen.

"Still, I do hope that you won't get involved in more messes over ultra-powerful tridents or more battles with deranged mermen who want to activate magic-draining chambers," her father pointed out.

The serious look back on her face, Evie replied, "Well, you can rest assured I won't go looking for them. But if my friends somehow get caught up in any problem, I can't just sit by instead of helping them."

There was a tiny flicker of pride in her father's eyes, but it was overshadowed by a rather heavy gloom of apprehension. Evie couldn't blame him. She remembered how she had felt when Zac and the others had gone to confront Erik without her. He had to be feeling even worse. At least she would have been able to go and give some form of help, like she had done eventually. If she got into any comparable danger, there would be very little her father could do to help her, and he might get into even more danger than she had when she had gone to Mako Island on that day when the chamber was deactivated.

"I understand." Her father's heavy tone seemed to add a 'But I don't like it.' to the end of the sentence.

More than ever before, Evie hoped neither she nor the other mermaids would ever have to deal with anything comparable to the stunt Erik had pulled.

 _Now there's only one more thing to talk about._ Evie thought.

It might not be the ideal time to talk about it, but it was another of those things that had to be addressed as soon as possible. Evie took a deep breath to steel herself, and returned to a subject they had addressed earlier this morning.

"So… will you keep Zac's secret from his parents?"

Her father frowned at the question. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened, and he interlaced his fingers as he leaned forward and looked down at his hands. Evie remained silent while she waited for his answer. From this point on, she couldn't say or do anything else. If even knowing the full truth wasn't enough to sway her father from telling the truth to Zac's parents, nothing else could.

When her father looked back up, he took a deep breath, and said, "I'll have to talk to Zac first." He paused at the end of that sentence, but it only lasted for an instant before he went on. "I understand why you want me to keep this a secret now that I know everything, and I know it's not my secret to reveal, but I still think Rob and Lauren should know as well." He paused again. "I know it will be a shock to them, but I'm sure that once they get over it they won't love Zac any less just because he's a born merman rather than a human."

Evie had no reply for that. She also thought Zac's parents should know about his tail, and she did agree they would get used to the idea once they learned the truth, but Zac didn't want to tell them yet, and she both understood his reasons and respected his right not to do so.

Her father sat straighter and added, "However, if Zac still doesn't change his mind after I try to help him to understand why he should tell his parents, I promise I won't tell anything to Rob and Lauren myself."

Evie sighed in relief.

"Thank you, dad," she said, suddenly feeling as if a huge weight had been removed from her shoulders.

In spite of everything, this conversation had gone about as well as it could. Granted, things wouldn't go back to exactly the same way they were before, like Mimmi had said yesterday, but Evie felt they would be much better than they were when she had to keep the secret from her father. Among other things, she wouldn't have to tell him any more lies, she wouldn't have to keep watching out for him when she used her magic to clean up Luke's fish tank, and they could dive together again.

And speaking of that, there was something she had to ask her father. Maybe it was a bit too soon, but she had made the offer this morning, and although he might not accept now that he knew the truth, she had seen his diving gear on the boat. She just needed to know if he was still willing to make use of it.

Noticing her gaze, her father looked at the diving gear himself. Even though she knew he had already guessed what she wanted to ask, Evie offered, "So… are you up for a dive?"

Her father glanced at his wristwatch before replying.

"Well, I do still have to meet Jonas for lunch, and to meet with that honeymooning couple afterwards, so we'll have to watch the time," he said. "But yes, I am up for a dive."

In spite of her father's words of caution regarding time, Evie couldn't help the smile that came across her face. She would rather her father didn't have those appointments – particularly the one with Jonas, which still struck her as unusual – but she would take whatever diving time she could get now.

And she'd do her best to make up for all the dives she'd turned down in the last months.

* * *

Each of her hands on the back of a humpback dolphin, Neelam broke through the surface of the water with a cetacean swimming on each side of her and a wide grin on her face.

As the dolphins rested underneath her arms, she kept herself on the same spot with impulses from her tail and support from the large animals, joy rushing through her. Her father had been right; these dolphins were of the playful sort. She knew for a fact, thanks to her command of their language, that they were both happy to have someone to play with instead of being constantly turned down by her father, like it had happened yesterday.

She was also happy to be swimming with them. She had swum with various kinds of dolphins many times before, but these two ranked amongst the most special ones she had ever seen. She wasn't thinking about the fact they did not look like the conventional bottlenose dolphins most parks or zoos held – they were a bit smaller than bottlenose dolphins, their skin was white rather than grey, and they had longer, thinner snouts – but about the fact they were so playful for their kind. Land people typically had a hard time finding these dolphins, and on the last two times she had seen members of their kind before, they hadn't been particularly receptive to interactions with her. But these two had been happy to let her stroke them, to race her around the reef, and even to tickle her with their snouts, which had led to her laughing quite a lot under water.

Her rush of joy fading a bit, she stroked the dolphin on her left – whose name, translated into human language, would be Whirl – and planted a kiss on the back of the one at her right – whose name, translated into human language, would be Peaceful. Then, to spare them from supporting her weight for any longer, she removed her arms from their backs. And that was all it took for the two of them to swim away from her.

About three metres from her, they stopped and turned around toward her. Then Peaceful told her that although he and Whirl had loved playing with her, they had to go away. Neelam couldn't help a disappointed pout at his clicks and squeaks and whistles, but she didn't try to persuade them otherwise. She had loved playing with them, but she did guess they had more important things to do.

So, speaking in their language, she thanked them for the fun and wished them a good journey. Peaceful told her goodbye and turned away from her, but Whirl, in a less conventional approach, turned around and swished his tail toward her with all his strength, showering her in water as she raised an arm in a vain attempt to shield herself.

"Here's one for you too, you prankster!" Neelam shouted at him as she splashed water with her arm.

Not a single of her drops hit its mark, as both dolphins had already gone under and were now swimming away. She dove as well and watched them swim among the myriad of fish that moved between the various coral outcrops around her, all of them trying to give both the cetaceans and Neelam a wide berth.

Once the dolphins vanished amongst the many animals swimming in the area, Neelam turned around and started swimming at normal speed through the reef, looking for her parents. She had been helping them with collecting samples until the dolphins had appeared, as they hadn't been there when Neelam and her parents arrived, but she had left her stuff with her father when the cetaceans showed up and her parents had let her play with them. Now that Whirl and Peaceful had left, she would pick up where she had left off.

After a short swim, she found them both, floating by the same coral outcrops, her father forcing a Belcher's sea snake to bite into a small flask enchanted for the end, and her mother slipping a crown of thorns starfish into a bag she had set beside her.

She dove deeper to meet them, but after only a few swishes of her tail, she looked left by accident, and saw something that made her stop.

For just a fraction of a second, it seemed there had been something behind a coral outcrop about thirty meters to her left. A strange shape that looked vaguely like a weird jellyfish with tentacles even on the top of its dome. But jellyfishes weren't fast enough, and whatever it was had gotten out of sight too fast for her to identify it. It could have been a school of fish, but it had seemed like a single being.

Neelam shrugged to herself. It must have been some weird effect of the light, or peculiar timing that enabled her to see the fish just before they vanished.

No longer thinking about that, she swam to her father to get her things, right as he let the sea snake go, aiming it so that it swam away from him, and keeping himself in a position stable enough to release it safely with movements from his scaly blue tail.

* * *

Invisible thanks to her magic, Nixie inwardly sighed in relief, not daring to make her sigh external because she would both waste breath and potentially alert those she was spying on. That one had been close. The mermaid currently swimming down to meet the merman had almost spotted her and Lyla. They needed to hide more carefully.

In an effort to do just that, Nixie swam down until she was behind a large coral outcrop, low enough for most of her body to be hidden, while still being high enough to see what the merman and the two mermaids with him were doing as long as she had her torso raised. If any of them looked at her again, she could just lean downwards and be fully hidden by the coral outcrop.

Once Nixie settled in, she dropped her invisibility; an instant later, Lyla did the same about a metre to her right. It might not seen the best idea, but in some cases it was better to hide than to be invisible. This trick was really good for them not to be seen, but it didn't help at all when they needed to communicate. Getting ideas across underwater was already difficult enough with their being unable to talk. If they couldn't even see one another's gestures, then it'd be impossible.

Not that there seemed to be a lot of doubts as to what was happening. The merman and the two mermaids that Nixie and Lyla had spotted during their swim, which had taken them quite far away from Mako Island, were gathering all manner of venoms from highly dangerous creatures. One of the mermaids had temporarily interrupted the task to play with two humpback dolphins who had shown up, but now appeared to have returned to continue it, presumably because the dolphins had already left. But the other mermaid and the mermen had been at it for hours now. They had already collected venoms from lionfish, from cone shells, from all sorts of anemones, and from all kinds of sea snakes. Why they would want so many venoms, Nixie at least had no idea, but whatever the animal they caught, the method they used to collect its venom was always the same: they used their magic to immobilize a bit, then they forced the animal to expel its venom into several tiny flasks they carried with them on strange straps they had slung from one shoulder to the opposite hip, and once they had gotten all the venom they wanted they let the animal go. The only exception to that rule were the crown-of-thorns starfish, which both the mermaids and the merman were actually picking up off the reef and putting into strange nets, presumably because of how proliferous they were.

Why they were doing it, it was a mystery. Nixie guessed they were collecting ingredients for potions, but most of the things she had seen them gathering weren't ingredients for any potion she knew of. Then again, no one knew what kind of secrets mermen had. Even other pods of mermaids had their own secrets, although there were some things that all mermaids knew. So this merman and these mermaids could perfectly be doing some magic potion Nixie didn't know about. What sort of potion was it then? Was it something healthy or was it some sort of poison?

 _It's still not as big a mystery as to what two mermaids are doing with a merman._ Nixie thought, as she watched the mermaid take the weird strap she had left with the merman and putting it over her shoulder.

For all the time she had been watching the mermaids and merman, their interactions had seemed familiar, almost as if they were part of the same pod. But mermaids and mermen were enemies; all mermaids and mermen knew it. Zac might be friendly to them, but he had grown up as a land boy. And that Erik fellow Ondina had dated for a while might have been friendly at first, but he'd ended up deciding he liked the chamber more than his girlfriend. So what were these two mermaids doing with this merman?

By coincidence, the merman looked on their direction at that very moment. Nixie crouched at the last possible instant. So did Lyla.

They floated in the same spots for several seconds. For Nixie at least, her own heart's thumps sounded like a whale slapping the water's surface. That one had also been close at best, if they hadn't been found out already. She didn't think they had, but it wouldn't hurt to check. If she only was able to.

Her whole body still rigid from alarm, Nixie raised her head again and peeked over the coral outcrop. The merman and the two mermaids had swam to different spots, but they were still busy with whatever they were doing, and didn't seem to have noticed them.

Whatever it was, Nixie thought they had seen enough. Rather than keep spying, they had to figure out what these three were up to.

To do that, they needed to ask someone who knew as much as possible about magic potions. All of the mermaid council's mermaids would likely fit, but Nixie didn't think it was wise to tell them. It might spread panic in the pod, and they all could leave Mako again.

So the best choice would be to ask Rita, who wasn't living with the pod, and knew a lot about magic potions. And if Rita wasn't home, they could ask Mimmi, who also knew a lot about magic potions. Granted, Mimmi, unlike Rita, was living with the pod, but she would know to keep her mouth shut. The only problem was that Mimmi most likely wouldn't be at Rita's home either. She would probably be at that marine park she worked at.

 _So that's where we have to go._ Nixie thought.

Her mind made up, she nudged Lyla, who looked at her inquisitively. Nixie pointed at her, then at herself, and then gestured in the general direction she guessed Rita's home was on, making as many bubbles as she could.

Lyla's eyes lit up in understanding. She nodded at her, and the two of them started swimming away from the spot the mermaids and the merman were at. Then, after they were far enough not to alert any of them, they super-sped away from the reef and toward Rita's grotto.

* * *

 **Well, once more, there is no fancast, due to no new characters being introduced.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Again, I'll try not to take too long with the next one.**


	6. Chapter 6: Mermaid Lure - Part I

**This chapter didn't get as far away from me as far as length is concerned, but it may still be a tad long. I apologize in advance for that.**

 **A note regarding this chapter: With only three days to go until the official Season 3 premieres, I felt it was important to get this out of the way. As I said in the first chapter, and as I added to the story's summary, this story does not take the still-incoming Season 3 as strictly canon. However, it was always meant to use some elements from it. One of those elements, debuting in this chapter, is the character of Karl, who we only know so far from the Mako Mermaids website and the wikia. I am well aware I can't write an accurate version of him only with what we know from those sources, so there is a fair lot of speculation when writing the scene with him. I hope my idea turns out to be accurate enough, but in case it doesn't, I apologize in advance to all those who become fans of the real Karl after seeing him in the series proper.**

 **So to answer any questions on that front, yes, I will continue writing this story, and will continue writing it as it was planned so far. There will be room for changes, but I won't build it around accomodating the incoming Season 3.**

 **To the guest review from last chapter: Thank you for your constructive criticism. I always am glad when I get that. I will try to improve on the front you mentioned. For now, the best I can say is that I acknowledge I am a wordy fellow, and still a relatively new writer. I haven't yet struck the right balance between 'talking heads floating in vaccuum' and 'whole essay on the characters' thoughts, appearances, and locations'. The locations part in particular is still even trickier than the rest for me.**

 **And don't worry, I don't hold your nitpick on Gunnar's accent against you. The issue will be addressed both this chapter and the next... and well, for what it's worth, I hope you at least accept my rather tacked-on solution.**

* * *

 **Another note: This really should have been on the first update of my chapter, but I forgot to include it then. The song "I'll Be Your Today", of which a few lyrics are included in this chapter, is property of Pete Dacy, David Cameron, and Mushroom Music & Control, not of me. **

* * *

**I hope you all enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

 **Chapter 6 – Mermaid Lure – Part I**

 _And I'll be yours today-ay-ay-ay_

 _And I'll be yours today_

 _If… you just… can stay…_

As Sirena let her voice trail off to the sound of David's last strum on his guitar, the audience at the café gave them a sounding round of applause. Sirena curtsied to thank them, as David bowed slightly, still sitting on his stool and with his guitar on his lap. As Sirena rose from the curtsy, she saw Evie standing at the café's door, clapping with the others in the café. She must have come in while Sirena was singing without her noticing. It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. Even in her early days of singing with David, she'd had a tendency to lose herself in the act and in him, but now that there was no secret between them, it was as if she and David vanished into their own world when they performed together.

As for Evie, she seemed calm, even happy, so if she had told her father the truth after all, it must have gone well.

"Well, that's it for now, folks," David said into his microphone when the applause ended. "Thank you all for being here."

While David took the guitar off of his shoulders and went to put it away, Sirena walked over to meet Evie, who had walked to the counter of her clothes shop after the applause ended to set down her purse. As they also noticed Evie's presence, Zac, Ondina and Mimmi leaned away from the counter and went over to meet her.

"Hi, everyone," Evie said, as Zac put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek in greeting. After she kissed his cheek in return, she turned to look at them.

Then, David joined them after having put away his guitar, with Carly, who had just finished taking two juices to a table, right behind him.

For a few moments, they all stood in silence. Then, Zac asked the question they all wanted answered, taking care to speak low enough for no one to eavesdrop.

"How did it go?"

Evie smiled a bit.

"It went well," she replied in the same low voice. "My dad was a bit sad that I kept it from him, but he also understood why I did so. We even went for a dive together afterwards."

Evie's answer was met with several smiles, words of congratulations and happiness, and two hugs, one from Zac, another from Carly. Even Ondina had the corners of her mouth turned upwards in a small grin.

After Evie let go of her boyfriend and best friend, she looked specifically at Sirena, Ondina, and Mimmi, and added, in a voice even lower than before, "And don't worry; he promised he wouldn't tell anything about any mermaids to anyone."

Sirena nodded, and so did Mimmi, but one of Ondina's eyebrows rose interrogatively.

"Any mermaids?" she asked. Although her voice was still low, it had gained a harsh edge. "What do you mean 'any mermaids'?"

Evie was silent for a few seconds, trying not to avert her eyes from Ondina but seemingly unable to keep looking her in the eye.

"I had to tell him a bit more than I expected to," Evie explained. "He knows about everything and everyone now."

Sirena gave Evie a sympathetic smile. When she had heard that Evie planned to tell her dad about being a mermaid while only including Zac and Mimmi, she had guessed how difficult it would be. She had had to tell David everything herself after she showed him her tail for the first time. Zac and Mimmi didn't seem upset either, presumably because they had agreed to be included in Evie's reveal from the beginning. Ondina, however, did not seem too thrilled.

"Everything and everyone?" Ondina parroted.

"Everything and everyone," Evie reiterated with a nod.

Ondina gave her a stern look. Mimmi put a hand on her best friend's shoulder to pacify her, but the other mermaid's expression didn't soften. Zac again put his arm around Evie's shoulders.

"I'm sorry, but he just started asking too many questions and guessing too many answers," Evie added. "I couldn't lie to him again."

"It's alright, Evie," Sirena reassured. "We understand."

Hopefully the 'we' she was thinking of was indeed true. She knew she spoke for herself and Mimmi – and for Nixie, although she wasn't here – but she wasn't sure if it was also true regarding Lyla or Ondina, especially because the latter still had a stern look on her face.

But then, her expression softened.

"I guess that it's better like that," Ondina said. "If he had any suspicions, he might have started snooping around on his own, and that could have been worse."

Then she smiled.

"And for what it's worth, I'm glad you and your dad can dive together again." Her look again became sterner, but this time with a playful edge, only emphasized by the way she jabbed her finger toward Evie. "Just make sure he doesn't take any more tourists to Mako."

Evie smiled and said, "We talked about that after our dive. He promised not to do it." After a pause, she added, "He even made a pinkie swear on it."

The statement caused all of them to chuckle.

"Oy!" A guy in a black leather jacket and faded jeans interrupted. "Is this a café or a talk show with the sound turned off?"

Sirena winced. She'd forgotten that with all of them gathered around Evie there was no one to serve the customers.

"Sorry!" David called back. "We'll be right with you!"

He gave the group an apologetic glance and then went over to the guy's table. After giving them a similar look, Carly walked to behind the counter to be ready to make whatever it was the guy had ordered.

As if their actions had reminded him of something, Zac's eyes lit up and he fished a piece of paper out of his shorts' pocket.

"And I'll be giving you this," he told Evie as he extended the paper to her. At her puzzled look, he explained. "It's Doctor Thomas' address. Dad already found it, and asked me to bring it to you. As soon as you want, we can go talk to him about Alana."

"We?" Evie echoed.

"We don't know this guy," Zac clarified, a serious look on his face. "It's true he sounds like he's a wonderful human being from what you said Alana told you, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'd rather go with you when you meet him."

Evie nodded as she slipped the piece of paper into her purse. After she zipped it shut, she turned to them again.

"Did I miss anything here?" she asked.

Sirena felt as if a cloud had just shadowed them at Evie's question. Mimmi and Ondina had told her and Zac about the problem they'd had a few hours ago at the marine park, and they all had agreed Evie also needed to know. They still weren't sure whether they'd tell the pod, but any mermaid that came to land on a regular basis would need to be aware of him.

A concerned look started to creep onto Evie's face as she noticed their silence and expressions.

"What happened?" Evie inquired in a tone that matched her frown.

"Here at the café nothing, but Mimmi and Ondina say that there's a guy working at the marine park who looks like he's a merman," Zac replied.

Puzzlement replaced the concern on Evie's face. Her eyes turned to Ondina and Mimmi, she asked, "Why do you think that?"

"He seems to know what we are," Mimmi explained. "And he hasn't told anyone. Ondina said that the most likely reason we can think of is that he's a merman, and although it may be something else, we all agree it's possible."

Evie's eyebrows furrowed for a considerable while. Then, she spoke again.

"What does he look like?"

This time, Zac was the one who replied. "They say he's around my height, well built, pale, green eyes, really short light brown hair…" He thought as if to see he wouldn't forget anything, and then added, "Und apparrently, he talks with zis Gerrman accent zat is ze most carrtoonish you would expect to encounterr."

Evie frowned in puzzlement as she heard Zac's imitation of the supposed merman's accent.

"Really? How come?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say his English is really rusty," Zac suggested. "Of course, he may also be an idiot who never learned the language properly. But then again, he may also just be trying to make us think he's an idiot so he'll get the drop on us. It will be hard to tell without talking to him."

Evie took a few seconds to reply once more, her lips pursed in thought.

"And… how do you plan to talk to him?" she asked.

Zac put his hand to his chin and rubbed it as if the answer was crawling around on the spot. When he failed to collect it, he turned to Ondina and Mimmi. Neither of them had any answer for it.

"We're still working that part out," Sirena said. "In the meantime, we'll be staying as far away from him as possible."

"It seems to be the best we can do for now," Evie agreed.

The conversation could have gone on, but then a brown-haired girl a few years younger than them approached and cleared her throat. Evie turned around at the sound, and then walked to behind the counter of her clothes shop.

"We have to get going," Mimmi said. "Our lunch period is nearly over."

"See you," Zac said as he, Evie, and Sirena raised their hands in goodbye.

"And be careful," Sirena added.

The two mermaids echoed the gesture and smiled reassuringly as they walked out of the café. After watching them turn around the corner, Sirena turned around and went to meet David, to see if he needed her help with anything.

* * *

A while later (but technically several hours earlier because of the difference in time zones) at San Diego, Chris and his best friend Karl walked out of the Edgewater Grill, one of the many restaurants Chris had spotted during his afternoon walk through Seaport Village, after having enjoyed a very good (and admittedly very pricey) dinner in there.

"Thanks again for the tip, man," Karl told Chris as they went toward the ocean for a walk along the water. "The food there was awesome."

Chris shrugged. "It wasn't really a tip. I've never eaten there before tonight either. But you're welcome."

In a sense, it had been a difficult choice, as more than one of the restaurants had caught his attention, but Chris would be leaving tomorrow, so he would never be able to try them all unless he wanted to return to Australia as heavy as a whale and with his wallet as empty as two broken eggshells. So he had ended up choosing the Edgewater Grill as the place he'd eat at after going back to the hostel to drop off the bag of souvenirs in order to not have to carry them all night long. He had also ended up bringing Karl along after his friend had been curious enough about the place.

He didn't mind the idea of having dinner with Karl, but now that they were done with eating, Chris had a feeling he knew where the conversation would be going, and what Karl would be doing next.

"So, any plans for the night?" Karl asked.

Apparently he had been right. Well, there was no harm in that, as long as Karl understood he would rather do something else than what he was sure his friend had in mind.

"Not really," Chris replied with a shrug. "I guess I'll just go for another walk around here before I get back to the hostel."

Karl sighed theatrically in mock-hopelessness.

"How original," he deadpanned. "Couldn't you have come up with anything lamer, like embroidering a sheet or counting bottle caps?"

Chris kept walking, unaffected by the remark. "Well, why don't you impart your great ideas and tell me what you are going to do then?"

"You should know by now," Karl replied with a smirk. "I'm going back to that swell club we went to yesterday and try out my luck with that gorgeous redhead we saw, of course."

Chris remembered both the nightclub and the girl. He hadn't particularly enjoyed the experience, as that kind of more intense night life wasn't his cup of tea. Still, he couldn't help but chuckle at the idea. He pitied the girl, but he somehow pitied Karl even more for repeating the move after what had happened yesterday.

"You still think you'll get lucky with her?" Chris asked, making no effort to hide his utter disbelief.

Karl smirked again. "Of course I will," he replied as if he was stating a fact as true as the sun rising and setting every day.

Chris couldn't help a smirk of his own, although his' was amused rather than smug.

"You remember what she did yesterday when you made your move, don't you?"

Karl's smirk faltered at the question, but he quickly composed a confident look.

"I'm willing to give it another shot," he stated. "And you should too." As if he'd realized what that sentence was implying, he said, "Not with the redhead of course, but with another girl at the club, or even with any you find here. It's your last night in San Diego; you should try to make it a pleasant one."

Well, if his afternoon had been any indication, a night walk through Seaport Village would also be pleasant, probably even more so than the afternoon one as he wouldn't have to worry about not getting too much sun. He might have to leave soon, as the place closed at ten and it was already half past nine, but half an hour here would still be pleasant.

"Seriously," Karl insisted. "You've already turned down at least two smoking-hot babes because of that Mimmi gal who taught you about dolphins. I get being thankful to her – I'd be too if she had helped me make my dream come true – but that doesn't mean you owe her anything."

Chris tried not to roll his eyes. Karl had been one of the few at the dolphin training program who didn't make snide remarks about his relationship with Mimmi, but even he didn't seem to understand why Chris kept such a deep online relationship with a person he'd only seen for days.

"I'm not paying her any debt," Chris explained. "I like her."

Unlike Chris, Karl did roll his eyes; whether he'd tried to avoid it or not was unclear.

"I get that you think that," his friend said. "I even get that you feel that. But do you really think that's enough to keep a relationship with her when we go back to the Gold Coast?"

From his concerned tone, it seemed that he was, in a roundabout sort of way, trying to make it so Chris wouldn't put so many false hopes on Mimmi. But unlike Karl, Chris didn't believe his hopes were false.

"I guess we'll find out then," he replied.

Karl looked like he was going to say something else, but as several seconds of silence went by, it started to seem he couldn't find the right words to go on with the conversation. Eventually, he just shrugged. "Well, if you turn out to be unable to keep a relationship with her, don't say I didn't warn you."

"I won't," Chris promised.

"Well, I will," Karl stated. Chris gave him a puzzled look. "Or rather, I will be going," he clarified.

Chris nodded, excusing himself from further comments. In a sense, he knew that a night club was a place to meet people just like any other, but at the same time, Chris doubted Karl wanted to get to know that redhead like he wanted to get to know Mimmi. If he knew Karl, his best friend probably wouldn't even remember that redhead again after tonight, assuming he did manage to spend the night with her.

"See you at the hostel then," he replied.

Karl started to walk away toward the exit, but after only three or four steps, he turned around and walked back to Chris.

"Are you sure you don't want to come and see if you'll get lucky as well?" Karl insisted. "Last time we were there that redhead had a gorgeous Latina friend who seemed to fancy you."

Chris again stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

"Yes Karl, I'm sure."

Karl's gaze seemed to say 'Your loss.' but he held himself back from saying the words out loud.

"Enjoy your walk then," he said as he again turned around to the exit of the Seaport Village and walked away before Chris could say anything in reply.

Chris watched him leave for a few seconds, and then turned back toward the sea, to contemplate the lights of the Coronado Bridge, the lights of the cars on it looking like ants carrying live fireflies to their nest. He just hoped Karl wouldn't get into trouble. His friend's tendency to not take no for an answer could go way beyond pushiness, and although he did have a knack for charming girls, he had trouble telling those playing hard to get apart from those who weren't interested.

According to Chris' grandfather, who had known Karl's father since they were young, Karl's issues with girls were a family thing. If his grandfather was right, it certainly might explain why Karl's father had only become a father in his fifties, as well as why Karl was the man's only child. But then again, Chris' grandfather also had said more than once that Karl was much nicer than his father had been at the same age, so it was a bit difficult to tell.

And all in all, Karl wasn't a bad guy. He hadn't ridiculed Chris for only getting into the program with Mimmi's help, and had been accepting when Chris turned out to be the best at interacting with the dolphins. And while he did seem to think Chris had his priorities a bit out of order, he mostly accepted their different ways of thinking and never went any farther than trying to get Chris to 'join in on the fun'. He also took a 'No.' from him much better than he did those from just about anyone else. His only flaw was being a bit on the conceited side, but it was something Chris had learned to deal with.

The cars kept moving along the bridge, visible only as dots standing out against a dark backdrop. And time kept passing; he probably had to get out soon. It was a pity. This place was really nice to be at.

A shiver seemed to prickle up his spine at the thought, and the hairs of his neck stood on end. Chris tensed up at the feeling. It might seem stereotypical, but he had the feeling he was being watched… and for whatever weird reason, he had the feeling that whoever was watching him was standing to his left.

As discreetly as he could, Chris turned left… and then inhaled sharply, as less than three two meters from him, two women stood watching him.

One was blond with icy blue eyes, pale, and lean, the other had brown hair, eyes of a slightly different shade of blue, brown hair, and a softer, slightly fuller figure. Both were relatively tall (around 170 cm if he had to guess) both had long hair, and both were wearing ankle-length sundresses with matching flip-flops – icy blue for the blond, yellow for the brunette. All in all, they did not seem threatening. But the way they were looking at him, as if they wanted to chop him up and eat him for breakfast, made him uncomfortable.

"Can I help you?" he asked, hoping they understood English.

The two women remained as still as statues when he spoke, as if they both hadn't heard him and hadn't seen him moving his mouth. They, they started singing.

And the moment he heard their voices, Chris' brain switched off like a light bulb.

* * *

In spite of their fears about Gunnar, Mimmi's and Ondina's afternoon at the marine park went on normally enough. They put their carts at exactly the same spots they had been at before lunch, they sold souvenirs and ice creams as usual, and they chatted a bit about whatever came up during the quiet moments they got. The only tense moment was when Gunnar passed by them with a tour group and made it a point to give them a threatening look none of the visitors with him saw, but even that lasted only a few seconds, as he hadn't even slowed down to look at them.

Mimmi had taken that chance to assess his tour group as they passed by her; it seemed they were enjoying the tour quite a bit. So Gunnar not only knew about the sea but could capture an audience – which according to Ondina, must be some merman talent, given how Erik had also appeared to be trustworthy until he activated the chamber.

But although it was unpleasant, it didn't ruin the rest of their afternoon, which was just like so many others they'd had at the marine park. At least until two visitors Mimmi hadn't been counting on at all arrived.

Her first thought when they approached was that those two land girls looked an awful lot like Lyla and Nixie. But as they got close enough for her to identify them, she realized that they _were_ Lyla and Nixie, looking straight at her as if they had been trying to find her, and with rather serious looks on their faces.

"What are you doing here?" Ondina demanded once they were close enough, right when Mimmi was about to ask the very same question.

"Well hello to you too," Lyla drawled.

Ondina flinched.

"Right, hello," she said in a calmer tone. Then, in a sterner, but still relatively calm one, she repeated, "What are you doing here?"

This time, it was Nixie who replied, looking straight at Mimmi.

"We need to talk to you."

Mimmi knew that socializing while at work was not well regarded, but the seriousness in Nixie's voice would have conveyed that the subject was important if she hadn't worked that out from the fact she and Lyla were here to begin with. After all they, unlike Sirena, Ondina, and Mimmi, hadn't made use of their own privilege to go back on land a single time since the pod had returned.

"About what?" Mimmi prompted.

"Potions," Nixie explained. "Or rather, their ingredients."

Mimmi's eyes narrowed in puzzlement.

"Why do you want to ask me about potion ingredients?" Seeing Lyla and Nixie scowling, she realized what she might have implied by her question and added. "Don't get me wrong, I'll be glad to answer what I can, but you haven't come on land a single time since the pod returned, and the pod's teachers would surely know whatever it is you want to ask. Why are you asking me specifically, and what is so urgent that you couldn't wait until I got to Mako tonight?"

Lyla's face softened at Mimmi's tirade, while Nixie rolled her eyes with a smirk.

"Typical Mimmi," the pale brunette deadpanned. "Always wanting to know everything…"

Before Mimmi could reply to that, Lyla butted in. "We're asking you because we happened to see a merman and two mermaids collecting all the things we want to ask you about and we decided it would be better not to tell the pod about them for now."

Mimmi's heart leapt into her throat, and Ondina's eyes seemed to double in size.

"A merman?" the curly-haired mermaid almost shouted.

Realizing her mistake a second later, Ondina looked around to see if anyone had eavesdropped. The other three mermaids did the same, but as far as they could see, all those in the vicinity were going on with what they were doing as if they hadn't heard them. As in the end Ondina hadn't actually spoken that

"Yes, a merman," Lyla repeated after they had checked no one was listening to them. "And two mermaids," she insisted as if it was an important detail.

In a sense, it was. Mermen and mermaids had been enemies for millennia, and although now her pod got along well with Zac, the fact that two mermaids clearly not from her pod were interacting with another merman seemed a little odd. Still, given that mermen had been revealed to have merely been in hiding, Mimmi supposed it wasn't impossible that every now and then a rare mermaid and merman would get along.

"Did the merman per chance look anything like that?"

Ondina's question dispelled Mimmi's musings; she followed the direction her friend was pointing at, and saw Gunnar standing about twenty meters away from them, his eyes narrowed as if he was sizing them up. This time, rather than looking at her and Ondina, he was looking at Nixie and Lyla, or, more specifically, at their moon rings. Lyla gave him her glare that could even scare sharks, but Gunnar either wasn't intimated or did a better job of hiding it than he had done this morning with her.

"Did the merman look anything like that?" Ondina asked once more.

"No," Lyla replied at last. "His hair was a bit longer and darker." Gunnar at last turned his gaze away and kept walking; only then did Lyla turn to Ondina and ask, "Why?"

Both Mimmi and Ondina hesitated. They, as well as Sirena and Zac, had agreed it was better not to tell the pod about Gunnar yet. But Nixie and Lyla were here with another matter that they found it was better to keep from the pod, and trying to lie to them by now would be difficult at best.

"We think that that guy's a merman," Mimmi explained.

Lyla shook slightly as if the reveal had a physical impact, Nixie scrunched up her nose like she tended to do when she was puzzled.

"Well, he's not the one we saw," the other brunette eventually stated.

"So now we may have two mermen who may be up to no good close by," Mimmi mused.

A shiver went through Mimmi. She no longer believed mermen were enemies by default, but Gunnar had already managed to make her uneasy. The idea that another merman was close by and potentially coming up with a nasty plot was far from pleasant, especially if he had two mermaids assisting him. Mermen were powerful, but if Erik was anything to go by, they were mostly ignorant about the ins and outs of the more complex types of magic. If that merman had two mermaids with him, they might have already shared a lot of information about mermaid spells with him, if not actually made a moon ring for him (as silly as the idea of a merman wearing a moon ring sounded).

"Let's focus on the important thing," Ondina pushed in, blunt as ever, her eyes locked on Nixie and Lyla "What exactly did you say that merman and those mermaids you saw are collecting for potions?"

Lyla and Nixie immediately turned to Mimmi at the reminder of what they were for, but the Northern Mermaid held up a hand before they could speak up.

"Hold that thought," she told them. Then she turned to Ondina and asked. "Can you look out for anyone who might be coming to my cart? I don't want to leave them hanging."

Ondina's ponytail swayed as she jerked her head toward Mimmi. "Sure."

While Ondina looked around to see if anyone seemed to be heading toward their carts, both Lyla and Nixie started listing all sorts of things to Mimmi – lionfish quills, cone-shell venom, crown-of-thorns starfish thorns, among many others. With each supposed ingredient they listed, Mimmi told them whether it was part of any potion she knew or not. The only stops they made were when anyone wanted to buy something from either hers or Ondina's cart, and they had to keep silent so they wouldn't draw suspicions. As a result, both Lyla and Nixie kept asking her about ingredients for a considerable while.

And the longer their list got, the more times Mimmi said she hadn't heard of any potion for which a given ingredient could be used. A few of the things they mentioned were indeed used in potions Mimmi either could make or knew about, but the vast majority of them was not part of any potion, as far as Mimmi knew at least. And modesty aside, she did know plenty of potions. But she didn't know any that could be made of any kind of combination of any of the ingredients Lyla and Nixie had listed; all those that were indeed part of any potion involved ingredients they hadn't mentioned.

So what exactly could this merman and the two mermaids with him be up to?

"Well, I think that's about it," Lyla finally said. "Except for the things we saw them collecting that even we knew could be used in potions."

Even without those, they had mentioned a lot of things indeed, which as far as Mimmi knew could be used in anything from a single very complicated potion to a whole lot of potions, which in turn made it impossible to predict what the merman and the two mermaids with him might be trying to do with what they were collecting.

As Lyla and Nixie kept looking expectantly at her, Mimmi explained, "Well, I wasn't lying when I gave you my answers individually, and I have nothing more to add now that I know the whole list either. All the things that I know can be used for potions are the ones I told you about. I have as much of an idea of what that merman and those mermaids might be up to as you."

Nixie groaned in annoyance, and Lyla clenched her jaw.

"Great," Lyla grumbled. "We go through the trouble of coming to land and we're not any closer to knowing what those three are up to."

Mimmi understood what she meant. At first, she had also loathed the idea of going to land. She might have acclimated herself to it, and had even started to enjoy it, but she could understand why some mermaids wouldn't, and why a mermaid who had to go to land might not enjoy it.

Then, Nixie carried the conversation onward, "So… do we tell the pod about the two mermen and those mermaids or not?"

Mimmi's eyes bugged out in surprise, but that reaction seemed mild compared to Ondina's and Lyla's, who respectively put their hands on their hips and folded their arms with borderline outraged looks on their faces.

"It just seemed like it might be better," Nixie pointed out. "I didn't like the look that that supposed merman was giving us, and Mimmi said that the one with the mermaids might be doing basically anything with what he's collecting. What's to say the next ingredient he needs isn't mermaid blood, or mermaid bones, or…"

"Alright, we get the point," Lyla interjected. "But you know that the first thing the pod will think of doing if they hear of more mermen in the area is leaving again."

All the mermaids went rigid as Lyla brought up that fact. Mimmi felt her heart sinking at the thought. If the pod left this time around, there would be no way for it to come back. With the trident stone and the merman chamber both destroyed, anything that made them leave would have to be even more dangerous and all the more likely to be permanent.

"Maybe now that there is no trident and no merman chamber they'll be more willing to stand and fight when it comes to that," Nixie pointed out.

"It may not even go that far," Mimmi added. "They've mostly accepted Zac; they could just talk to that merman and the mermaids who are with him." At everyone's puzzled looks, Mimmi suggested, "Sure, they may be making dangerous potions, but they also may be making harmless or even beneficial ones."

None of the other mermaids voiced any thoughts, but the scepticism on their faces spoke just fine.

"Hope is the last to die," Mimmi pointed out, quoting something she had heard over her months on land.

She couldn't tell whether any of the other mermaids had ever heard the quote, but all of them relaxed as they heard it. After all, it applied to all four of them. They had all hoped to make it possible for the pod to return to Mako even when there was no hope to be had, and their hopes had turned out to not be in vain. And at least regarding the merman Nixie and Lyla had seen, their hopes seemed possible. If he could get along with two mermaids, he could presumably get along with a whole pod. Gunnar might be a trickier story, but he would still be only one against more than a hundred. With no merman chamber to render them all powerless, he should be easy enough to deal with if he turned out to be aggressive.

"The question still stands," Lyla insisted. "Do we tell the pod or not?"

"We could try to tell Rita first," Ondina suggested. "She and Veridia were friends, so she'll probably know better whether we should tell the pod or not, and how to break the news to her if she decides that's what's best."

A murmur of agreement went through Mimmi, Nixie and Lyla. It made sense. Rita might still be living at her home, but she and Veridia had been making some efforts to reconnect. They were few and far between, because Rita was busy with land school and Veridia, even now that there was no ongoing battle and they were again settled into a proper home, still had quite a few things to take care of daily in the pod. All the same, their relationship had definitely improved since the day they had almost come to blows in the merman chamber.

"We could stop by Rita's house when we leave the marine park," Mimmi volunteered. "She should be there by then."

Lyla nodded. "You do that. We'll be heading back to Mako."

"Thanks for the info on potion ingredients," Nixie added.

"No problem," Mimmi replied.

Nixie and Lyla turned around to leave, but the second they finished doing so the blond mermaid turned back to them as if she'd had a sudden thought. When she sensed that, Nixie turned back to Mimmi and Ondina as well.

"By the way, did Evie already tell her dad about her tail?" Lyla asked.

Mimmi held back an intrigued remark. As far as she knew, Evie had never talked to Lyla about the fact she would be telling her father about her tail, simply because she hadn't thought she would need to tell him about the whole pod. But Sirena had been there when Evie talked to Zac and Mimmi; maybe she had told Nixie and Lyla about that.

"Yes, she did," Mimmi confirmed.

"And he?" Lyla pressed on.

Mimmi shrugged.

"I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened for sure, but Evie told us he was a bit sad that she kept it from him, but that he understood why she did so," she said, trying to convey the same idea Evie had when she spoke about her father's reaction. "She also told us that they went for a dive afterwards, so he must have taken it well enough. And she also said he promised not to tell anyone about mermaids and to not take any more tourists to Mako Island, so the pod can rest assured on that front."

Nixie smiled at Mimmi's words, and relief burst across her features, but Lyla seemed to be fighting to keep a neutral face instead of a scowl.

"I'm glad to know that," she ground out. "See you later."

Then she turned around and walked away, leaving Nixie standing with Ondina and Mimmi.

"What's wrong with her?" Mimmi asked.

Rather than answering the question, Nixie started looking around as if trying to find some subject that would pop into the conversation and spare her from replying. When she failed to find it, she turned to Mimmi and, as if just saying so was painful, she explained, "She liked Zac when we last were here and she's been hoping to reconnect with him now that we're back."

Nixie spoke hastily, as if forcing herself to say anything before her nerve failed her. Mimmi's sympathy went out to Lyla. She had never been in the same situation, but she couldn't imagine it was pleasant for any of the involved parties. She was sad Lyla was going through love issues, but truth being told, there was no way around it. Mimmi knew that Zac and Evie only had eyes – and everything else – for one another. Even if Lyla was the kind of mermaid who would resort to underhanded tricks – which as far as Mimmi could tell, she wasn't – none would give her what she wanted. Even mermaids were unable to put love in someone's heart. Some of their songs lead to things like a fascination or an obsession, but creating true love would be beyond even her mother.

"I'm sorry to know that," Mimmi offered.

"It's tough," Nixie said nonchalantly. "But we've got to learn to move on."

Mimmi's eyes narrowed interrogatively. Something about the way Nixie had spoken made it seem as if the statement also applied to her rather than to Lyla alone. But why would it? Had she had feelings for someone else when she was on land only to find they had moved on when she returned?

Some of those questions must have been visible on Mimmi's face, because Nixie immediately said, "See you tonight."

Before either Mimmi or Ondina could reply, she turned around and jogged off to catch up with Lyla. The two of them exchanged a look at the hastiness with which Nixie had left, but neither remarked on it. Instead, they mulled over what the other two mermaids had told them, trying to get some answers to their questions before the end of their shift arrived and they went to talk to Rita about Gunnar and the merman Nixie and Lyla had spotted.

* * *

Hydrurga was the first to surface on the moon pool, her heart pounding in anticipation. Not waiting for Sedna to arrive with the land boy, she swam over to one of the small ledges in the moon pool, one of the few parts in it that rose low enough out of the water for her to reach it, and then pushed aside a stone about as wide as her head that could be seen on the rocky surface.

Careful not to break anything, yet desperately eager to have confirmation that what she had left behind was still in its place, she stuck her hand into the hole the stone had been covering. Then she smiled as she felt her hand meeting the smooth cold surface of what she had kept inside the hole. It was still here. She could enact her plan.

Still smiling, she took out a glass vial as long as her hand from her wrist to the tip of her index finger and about three fingers wide. It was capped with sea slime, and full to the brim with a golden-green liquid she and Sedna had taken over two weeks to make. She had barely been able to leave it behind when they went to get the land boy, but she had been forced to, as the alternative would have been to let Sedna take care of it. She might not have any complaints on Sedna so far, but Hydrurga was not the kind of mermaid who trusted others with anything easily. Thankfully, it had paid off, and not only was the land boy in their grasp, but the potion was ready to be used. And all of it had to be used properly tonight, or they would have to wait a whole month before making another try, a try that would be too difficult, as they'd have to make it on Mako Island, which would imply avoiding the pod's watch. This moon pool, unguarded by any pod, was much better for their goals.

The sounds of two bodies surfacing reached her ears. Hydrurga turned around and saw Sedna floating in front of her, looking a bit tired from having to drag the land boy in by herself, and the land boy treading water about a meter behind her, his eyes empty and dull like those of all the land people Hydrurga had enchanted over the years had been.

"Sit there," Hydrurga demanded as she pointed her finger to her right.

Without saying a word, the boy swam to another ledge in the moon pool, which had a length and width comparable to a mermaid's; more than enough for the land boy to sit on while they waited for the moon to be in position. The last thing they needed was for one of their tools to eliminate Nerissa's children to drown before they could use it, especially when it had been difficult enough to get him to come here. Not only had they needed to wait until his friend went away, but they had needed to get a boat for him to make the journey, which had involved plenty of mishaps with land people because of their lack of understanding of land currency. But the difficult part was already done. Now it was just a matter of acting at the right time.

Once the land boy heaved himself up to the ledge and sat down, Hydrurga and Sedna looked upwards at the cave's ceiling, waiting for the full moon to arrive to the spot it would have to be at for them to start their task.

* * *

 **And we're getting closer to one of the plot-points I really wanted to get to ever since I first began writing this story. The next part of it will take place next chapter.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next one is nearly finished, and should be ready tomorrow.**


	7. Chapter 7: Mermaid Lure - Part II

**Like the previous one, this chapter didn't get as far away from me in terms of length, but it's still rather long. I hope you enjoy it.**

 **But before it starts, there is something I want to say. Thank you very much to all those who have been reading this story, especially given that it started being written so little before Season 3 comes out and that it expressely contradicts it. I have been loving each of your reviews, alerts, favorites, and hits. I hope you keep enjoying this story even after the real season 3 comes out, although they are already so ostensibly different.**

 **Thank you for reading. And now, onto the second part of 'Mermaid Lure'.**

* * *

 **Chapter 7 – Mermaid Lure – Part II**

Blended into the crowd of land people strolling into the marine park, Gunnar strolled to the exit door, his dark-blue polo shirt and navy-blue shorts exchanged by a light shirt and beige cotton trousers. With his last guided tour having already come to an end, he didn't particularly look forward to remaining there any longer than strictly necessary.

Granted, the actual work had been enjoyable. Gunnar had always loved the sea - which admiteddly was to be expected for someone like him - and sharing his love for it with others was a surprisingly pleasant experience, even if he had to stick to the least fantastical parts during his guided tours. But knowing he was in close proximity of at least two, occasionally three mermaids drained a lot of joy out of the experience, and keeping in mind that those mermaids were most likely of the dangerous sort had only made it worse.

Still, Gunnar didn't usually back down from challenges, which was why he had come to the Gold Coast to begin with. But now he wondered if he should have waited a bit longer before getting the mermaids into a hostile mindset. He hadn't had a lot of choices since yesterday, after he had stared so much at Mimmi, but maybe he could have tried to come up with an alternate plan instead of heading straight for conflict. Perhaps that way he could have become friends with them before getting what he wanted. Gunnar had never been a good actor, but now he felt that maybe he should have make an effort, especially now that he knew that there were not four mermaids in the area, but at least six; the moon rings on those two girls that had been talking to Mimmi and Ondina confirmed their identities.

Could there be more of them? Could the whole pod already be living by Mako Island? If so, what would he do? Hightail it out of here while he still could? Or stay and fight, as suicidal as it sounded?

Those were good questions. But Gunnar didn't have a good answer.

Maybe he should go for a swim to clear his head. Or play something on his lute. Or listen to some music, like that bouncy little tune that was playing just beyond the marine park's door.

Gunnar started at the realization. Someone standing right outside the marine park, surrounded by a semicircle of people, was actually playing a tune, with some kind of flute if he had to guess. It was 'In The Good Old Summertime', by George Evans and Ren Shields – an ironic tune to be played at this time of the year in Australia. And judging from what Gunnar could hear, whoever was playing it was quite good. Curious about who might be the musician, Gunnar approached the twenty or so people grouped around the performed to get a look at his face.

But the one he saw was nothing like what he expected.

Instead of some scruffy older man, there was a short, pale teenaged girl who looked like she was a few years younger than him. Like he had guessed, she was playing the song on a blue transverse flute that perfectly matched the colour of the stone in the ring around her index finger, moving her body to the rhythm of it. A foldable stool in its unfolded position stood about a meter to her right with a flute case on top, and a guitar bag that clearly had a guitar inside it rested on the wall behind her.

She didn't look malnourished or dirty, unlike other people that played in the street. Her flaming red hair fell down to her waist without a speck of dirt, and her white halter top, goldenrod capris, and pale-grey sneakers were clean, albeit worn in. However, the blue cap at her feet, on which several coins could be seen already, suggested that she did need the money. And the bags under her eyes, joined by the way her shoulders seemed to shake on occasion as if she had to make an effort not to let them sag, conveyed that she was tired. She must not have slept well last night, at least.

But the really interesting thing was her ring.

He knew what it was. He had seen four just like it today.

 _She is a mermaid._ A voice spoke from the back of his mind.

He had no doubt about that. Only mermaids – well, merpeople he supposed – could wear moon rings for extended periods without being affected. For this girl to be wearing her ring here, she had to have been wearing it since this morning – too long for her to escape any side effects of wearing it if she was a human.

But why would a mermaid need to be playing on the street for money? They knew how to feed in the sea, and most of them did not ever go on land. Yet this one knew not only about the habit of playing for money, but seemed to actually need it. Why?

 _Maybe I can find out._ Gunnar thought.

It was a risky idea to be sure. Mermaids were knowledgeable about magic. If she learned what he was, she could just zap him with the moon ring or turn him into a crab or use one other of the many tricks mermaids knew. But he'd already ruined any chances at a friendly approach toward Mimmi or Ondina or any other of the mermaids with them. Perhaps it wouldn't be too late with this one.

So he waited, in the first row of the crowd.

A few moments after he settled in, the mermaid played the song's last note, the sound of it spreading across the vicinity. When she ended, her audience clapped, Gunnar himself amongst them. But unlike the others, he watched the girl closely as she curtsied in thanks, trying to determine what the best approach would be. Not knowing her, it was difficult to say… but something was bound to work.

After a few seconds, she crouched to pick up her 'alms cap' and rose from her curtsy under Gunnar's eye. And already his plans started to dispel, as pity started to prickle at him. The girl wobbled when she stood up, the bags under her eyes looking a tad deeper now that she wasn't moving her body as she played the flute. Needing the money or not, she was exhausted. That suggested a lonely life without the protection of a pod, something highly unusual for a mermaid.

And as she started going around the audience, reaching her cap out to each of them, and thanking every person who deposited a coin inside her cap with a grateful smile, any remnants of Gunnar's plans to approach this mermaid vanished. She wasn't Mimmi or Ondina or Sirena or any of their friends from the pod. If she was, she wouldn't need to be here playing for money. Approaching her would be useless, dangerous, and most of all, it would be mean. She clearly had enough problems without him snooping around.

"Thank you," the girl again said as the middle-aged lady beside Gunnar deposited two dollars in her cap. It seemed to Gunnar that she had an Irish accent.

Then she moved to him.

Gunnar took his wallet out of his trousers' pocket and deposited a twenty dollar bill in it. The girl gasped as she saw it, and then blinked owlishly at him, her eyes wide in a way Gunnar couldn't help but find adorable. To his right, most of the girl's audience gaped at him.

"You'd better shut your mouths or a fly will get in there," Gunnar quipped at them.

All too late, he realized he had spoken normally, with only his usual slight German accent.

 _Well, curse that._ He thought. _None of those mermaids are around, and keeping that blasted fake accent for the whole day is ruining my throat._

Probably another poor tactical decision in the end. There was still a chance it might those mermaids think he was a moron and cause them to lower their guard, but he wasn't holding out hope. He was just keeping it because it would be suspicious if he dropped it now. He really ought to either rethink his strategy thoroughly or get far away from the Gold Coast while he still hadn't been maimed.

Having nothing better to do, Gunnar turned around and walked away from the mermaid and her audience.

Maybe he'd go for that swim after all. He'd have to be careful not to run into any mermaids in the water, but it shouldn't be too difficult. There was a lot of ocean out there.

"Wait!"

Gunnar turned around at the sound of that voice; the mermaid was running toward him, her cap perched on her head, the folding stood in her left arm, the guitar bag slung over her back – with the flute's case in a side pouch – and the twenty dollar bill in her right hand; presumably, the rest of the money was in the guitar bag as well.

When she got to him, she reached out with the bill and said, "You gave me too much. This is a twenty dollar bill."

Gunnar glanced from the bill to her. "I know."

The mermaid glanced from him to the note, her eyes again adorably wide.

"But this is too much," she said. "I can't take it from you."

Gunnar pushed her hand and the bill gentle back at her. "You're not taking it. I'm giving it."

"But so much?" she insisted.

Gunnar repressed an amused grin. He'd never met someone who needed to beg for money complaining they had gotten too much of it.

"If you need it, why are you complaining?" He tried to reason.

The mermaid took her time to reply, her eyes flickering from him to the note, apparently unsure of how to counter his logic.

"Now I feel like I owe you…" she eventually mumbled.

Gunnar raised his hands. "You don't owe me anything. I gave you the bill because I wanted to. Keep it and spend it as you see fit."

The girl's arm remained raised, the bill swaying in the breeze.

"Really. If you don't keep it, I'll rip it and throw it away."

Again, the girl's eyes widened, this time in pure alarm. He couldn't blame her; the idea of throwing so much money away was preposterous. Work at the marine park paid well, but not well enough that he could throw so much money away like that. But now that he had said he would do it, he would if it came down to it.

It didn't. After a few seconds, the girl slipped the bill into her right pocket and gave him a thankful smile.

"Thank you, then…"

He reached his hand out. "Gunnar. Gunnar Erxleben."

The girl shook it.

"Alana McAuliffe," she replied.

She had a surname. Another thing that showed she was very much settled into life on land. But she mustn't have settled into life on land at the Gold Coast, given that she had an Irish accent. And if she needed to play music on the streets to earn a livelihood, she probably wasn't that well settled at all. What was her story?

"You can let go of my hand, you know?" Alana pointed out, her eyes twinkling in amusement.

Gunnar pulled his hand free.

"Sorry," he mumbled, feeling all his blood flowing to his face.

Great. He'd managed to look like an idiot. That was even worse than being so deliberately confrontational toward the other mermaids.

"Do you need any help to get that somewhere?" he offered. "I could take the guitar bag if you wanted."

Alana stepped back, her eyes again wide in alarm.

"No, thank you," she replied. "I can manage."

"Are you sure?" Gunnar tried to insist. "I could…"

"I can manage," Alana repeated, her whole body tense as if she was ready to bolt the next time Gunnar tried to insist.

He again raised his hands in appeasement. "Alright, alright. You can manage."

Slowly, her eyes returned to normal, but they remained trained on him as if she was afraid he would pull out a knife and stab her.

He jerked his thumb behind him.

"I'll be going then."

She again said nothing. Her eyes weren't wide, but she was trying not to blink, as if she was scared. He'd better go away soon, it seemed.

But he couldn't help one last comment.

"Good luck, Alana."

For the first time, she gave him a smile. It was small, not even showing her teeth, but Gunnar couldn't help but to smile back. Then he raised a hand as if waving goodbye, turned around, and left before he could mess up again. Now, more than ever, he wanted to go for that swim.

He was a bit sad to be going, truth being told. He hadn't known her for long, but he had liked Alana. She seemed friendly, she could look adorable, and her exhausted look made him feel for her. It was a pity not all mermaids were like her.

But then again, she didn't know the truth about him. If she did, she probably would treat him just as badly as he guessed Mimmi, Ondina, and all their mermaid friends wanted to.

For some reason, Gunnar couldn't hold back a prickle of sadness at that.

* * *

A beam of light shone down on them through the hole in the ceiling, which made Hydrurga stiffen. Sedna looked up, and saw an edge of the full moon starting to get into the patch of starry sky above them. The water in the moon pool started to bubble up around her.

"It is time," Hydrurga stated.

Sedna said nothing. She had guessed the same on her own, but mouthing off to Hydrurga would not be wise.

The blond mermaid turned to the ledge where the land boy sat.

"Come here, land boy," Hydrurga commanded.

Without saying a word, the land boy slid off of the ledge and swam over to the two of them. He stopped about a meter and a half of them, treading water as he looked at the two mermaids with empty eyes that didn't actually see anything. If Sedna didn't know he was enchanted, she would have sworn he was a corpse in its death throes.

The bubbling of the water around them kept increasing, the bubbles that burst across the surface now as wide as Sedna's hand. Hydrurga took her hand to the bottle and removed the sea slime sealing its neck's opening. Then, she turned to Sedna with a steely and icy gaze that she must have spent her whole life perfecting.

"Are you ready?" Hydrurga asked.

Sedna nodded and replied, "Yes."

She had spoken in her most serious and at the same time normal tone, trying not to sound so firm that she seemed challenging while also not sounding so meek that she seemed a spineless worm, but Hydrurga's expression didn't soften. If anything, her face had become so harsh and cold that it seemed carved out of ice.

"Do not fail," Hydrurga warned.

"I won't," Sedna assured, this time unable to keep an edge of a quiver out of her voice. Hopefully the bubbling water had masked it.

Hydrurga's face remained as cold and stern as before, the effect becoming even spookier as ever more moonlight poured in through the skylight above them.

"See to it that you don't."

Sedna kept quiet this time around, giving only a nod and trying to keep her eyes from widening. A reply to that remark might be taken as a challenge.

It was difficult to say what Hydrurga thought of her behavior, but whatever her thoughts, she said nothing else, and simply poured the vial's contents toward the water with her left hand as both she and Sedna raised their right hands. The golden-green potion in the bottle gathered into a liquid sphere which floated in front of them, and then flew toward the boy in a swarm of globs that gathered around him and swirled around him like a tornado, making a high-pitched screech.

The bubbles were now almost the size of their heads, and the full moon was almost to the center of the skylight. The noise made by the swirl Sedna and Hydrurga had made with the potion grew ever louder, but the land boy simply kept treading water, unblinking.

Sedna felt shivers rippling across her body from the sight; no one normal would be so indifferent to something so intense. She had always known siren songs were really powerful, and had already seen their effect on the land boy… but still, for him to be so absorbed that not even this got him out of it… it was scary. And Hydrurga said she had experience with using siren songs, and of varieties Sedna hadn't even heard.

That was even scarier than the land boy's current condition.

But Sedna forced herself to keep her hand raised and her mind dedicated to her task. She couldn't let her focus falter.

The full moon at last got exactly at the center of the hole. Hydrurga's eyes narrowed even further.

"Now," she decreed.

The golden-green tornado started to close in around the boy, the noise it made growing to a loud roar, and the light it released so bright that it had lit up the tunnel's walls halfway up to the skylight. Again, the boy didn't react.

Sedna kept her hand raised and her mind focused on their task. It was now or never.

The huge glob shimmered, and then, like water being sucked into a whale shark's mouth, it rushed into the boy. He flinched like a harpooned whale and his upper half jerked above the surface. Then, he fell on his back onto the moon pool. His eyes were closed from loss of consciousness, but Sedna inwardly sighed in relief. At least now, floating on his back in front of them, he looked more normal.

The full moon started to move away from the center of the skylight, but it still cast enough light for Sedna to see Hydrurga smiling. Not a twisted smile that came from sick forms of pleasure, but a smile of relief and triumph at a successful plan.

In spite of her tiredness, Sedna couldn't help a smile of her own.

They had succeeded.

The land boy was theirs.

* * *

Her father arrived while she and Zac were setting up the porch's table up for a dinner for three, holding a beige folder in his right hand. He walked a tad slower than usual, but he gave both of them a warm smile as he walked up the steps to the porch.

"Good evening, kids," he greeted.

"Hi, dad," Evie replied as she finished folding a napkin.

"Good evening, Mr. McLaren," Zac added as he set the last fork down beside its respective plate.

Her father walked into the house, but stopped at the doorway as he took a sniff of the air.

"This smells delicious," he complimented. After another sniff, he turned to look at them. "Fish lasagna?"

Evie nodded.

"I hope you don't mind."

Her father smiled good-naturedly. "It wouldn't be the first time I dined fish over the last months." He shifted his eyes to Zac and quipped, "I guess now I know why."

Zac lowered his eyes for a fraction of a second, a sheepish half-smile on his face.

"If it helps, it wasn't deliberate," he offered as he looked back up at her father.

Although he still had the same good-natured smile on his face, Evie thought it might be better to change subjects. Knowing what her father had been doing that afternoon, she asked, "How did the meeting with that couple go?"

"It went well," her father replied. "They liked Rainbow's Point, and I managed to schedule a dive with them for next Thursday."

Evie smiled in relief, but it melted into a frown as she saw the slivers of discomfort and wariness creeping onto her father's expression, as if he was afraid she was going to ask something else. Given the other thing he'd had to take care of after their dive, that could only be one thing.

"And what did Jonas want?" she asked, trying to keep a neutral tone.

Her father went rigid as if he was fighting back a wince. Evie felt her concern making itself known on her face. Zac also frowned at her father's reaction.

"Just let me put this away and I'll talk to you about that," her father replied, raising the hand holding the folder.

Then he turned around and walked into the house. Evie and Zac exchanged a concerned look.

"What was that about?" he asked her in a hushed voice.

"I don't know," Evie replied in a similar tone. "Maybe either Jonas or someone in his family are sick."

Zac gave her a nod to show he'd heard, but judging from his face, he wasn't convinced.

"What do you think it might be?" Evie prompted.

Zac shook his left index finger forward and back, like he sometimes did when he was thinking. After a few seconds, of doing so, he suggested, "Do you think it's possible Jonas talked to your dad to see if he could take in some kid in need?"

Evie's eyebrows curled into one another, but it lasted only for a second before she started to consider the possibility. It could be. It didn't make much sense, but it could be. She had no idea why, though.

"Maybe," she acknowledged.

Their conversation ended there, as they heard her father's footsteps heading toward them. A few seconds later, he was walking out of the house, holding the steaming tray with fish lasagna between his hands and two oven mitts.

"Looks delicious, kids," he said as he set the tray down on a placemat. "You've really outdone yourselves."

Evie expected him to sit at the table after he set the tray down, but instead, he remained standing, his hands on the backrest of the chair in front of him as if he was sinking his fingers into it; his oven mitts made that impossible to tell.

"So, what did Jonas say?" Evie tried again.

Her father sighed deeply as if trying to release some kind of inner burden. Then, he turned to Zac.

"Could you go away for a bit, Zac? Evie and I need to talk about this alone."

Surprise flashed across Zac's eyes, echoing the one Evie felt rising up inside her. But it only lasted a moment before Zac nodded and said, "Sure, Mr. McLaren."

As he turned around, he and Evie exchanged a look both of them understood; they'd talk about whatever this was later. Then Zac walked away until he was by the small dock at the back of their home.

Once he was there, her father motioned toward the chair to the right of the one behind which he stood.

"Sit down, Evie."

Evie did as he requested, trying not to let her concern mount. Her father then took off the oven mitts and sat down as well, rubbing his hands together. Evie tried to remain still; one nervous person at the table was too much.

After several seconds with only the crickets chirping and the steam rising from the lasagna starting to decrease, her father turned to her and asked, "What would you think if I asked you if you would mind having another temporary sibling?"

So Zac had been right after all. Jonas had talked to her father about him taking in another foster child. That was a relief. At least neither Jonas nor anyone else connected to him was sick.

After thinking about the answer for a bit, Evie replied, "I'd ask how that came about. We haven't taken in any foster child since mom got sick."

Her father nodded. "I know, I know. Jonas told me he knew that as well, but he also said that when he started considering a foster family for this particular girl, we were the first ones he thought about."

One of Evie's eyebrows rose. "Why?"

Her father let out another deep sigh, and explained, "She lost her mother to cancer about a week ago."

A familiar unpleasant weight crashed down on Evie's heart. Cancer. Again cancer. That accursed thing was a plague. First Alana's mother, and then the mother of the girl her father had mentioned, and who knows how many others had died of it on the same day just in the Gold Coast. In spite of not knowing who this girl was, Evie felt her sympathy going to her.

"She doesn't have any family or friends in Australia, and they're still trying to get a hold of any family she might have at her country," her father went on. "She's in a group home for now, but apparently she has been doing badly even by the standards of kids that live at those places, so they've been trying to find her a temporary home. Like I told you, Jonas said we were the first ones he thought about."

It sounded weirdly similar to Alana's situation. She also was in a foreign country with no family she knew of. But Evie supposed she wouldn't be the only one. Far too many people died in Australia every day. It would be conceivable that a few were foreigners who left orphaned children that only had family in their home countries. There was one puzzling issue, however,

"And we could take her in just like that?" Evie asked. "Isn't there a lot of paperwork to go through?"

"I've been keeping up with it," her father replied. When he saw how Evie barely managed to restrain her jaw from dropping, he added in a surprised tone, "Didn't you know?"

No. She hadn't. She did remember her father keeping up with that paperwork for years after her mother had died, but as she hadn't had any temporary siblings for years, she thought the paperwork wasn't going through at all. But then again, as close as she and her father were, they weren't glued to one another twenty-four seven.

"I thought it wasn't going through," Evie explained. "Seeing as I haven't gotten any temporary siblings for years…"

"Well, maybe that's just because I'm an old widower with a biological daughter rather than a single beautiful young woman." Her father tried to chuckle, but it came out more as if he was clearing his throat. "Or maybe it's because Jonas and his colleagues never wanted to resort to us until today." This time, his tone was more serious.

It made sense. Most foster parents were married, and most single foster parents were women, for many reasons. One of the most prevalent ones was that society believed single men could not appropriately care for children, but there were other accusations on that front Evie didn't even want to think about, all of which would make her punch the accuser if such an accusation was directed at her father.

"So… what do you think?" her father asked.

Evie fiddled with her moon ring for a few seconds, watching the still-present cloud of steam rising from the tray. As much sympathy as she had felt for whoever this girl was, she felt rather nervous about the idea of sharing her home with a complete stranger for the first time in ten years, especially now that she had the mermaid secret to hide. And she had no idea of what this girl was like either; she could be ten times more detestable than Jodie as far as she knew. And Evie had a mermaid secret to hide now; she had to be even more careful about who she had around her house.

But she had just lost her mother, could have no other family anywhere, group homes were bad places to live in, and according to her father's words, she was doing badly even by the standards of children that lived there. Evie could not in good conscience turn her away, especially when just yesterday she had considered the possibility of her father taking in Alana. And she had managed to keep her tail a secret before. She could do it again.

Evie took a deep breath, and then turned to her father.

"I'd rather you told me what you think," she said.

Just because she might be willing to accept another temporary sibling, she didn't want her father to feel like he had to do it either. She trusted Jonas enough to think he wouldn't have guilt-tripped her father into this, but she didn't want him to do it if it would be too difficult for him either.

"The decision is yours," her father replied.

His tone was gentle, but it did nothing to quieten Evie's concern.

"I promise, sweetheart, if you'd rather not have her here, I won't hold it against you," he added.

"But what about you?" Evie asked him. "Are you sure you're ready for it? Won't it be too difficult for you to do this without mum?"

Her father again sighed, but his posture didn't sag, and he looked straight at Evie when he replied. "I'll confess, I have no idea how it will be until she actually starts living here."

His sentence ended there, but Evie could tell from her father's tone that he had already made up his mind, and what his decision had been. It was time to tell him hers.

"For me it's fine," she replied, looking her father in the eye.

He didn't seem convinced.

"Are you sure?" As if he was afraid he hadn't been clear, he added, "Besides everything else, won't you have problems with your tail?"

Evie gave her father an impressed look. He seemed to be getting into his new mindset even faster than Evie had thought he would. But like he had said, he wasn't an idiot, and Evie had never doubted he loved her. But she did think she had that part covered.

"I managed to hide my tail from you for months," Evie replied, trying to repress her guilt. "I think I can hide it from her as well." Realizing how it might have come across, she tried to explain what she meant. "Don't worry, I'm not saying I won't interact with her at all, much less that I won't try to help her through what she's enduring. I'm just saying she won't get to know that I'm a mermaid. Not from the get-go, at least."

All things considered, she probably would never tell this girl anything about her tail, as placements at foster homes tended to be temporary and relatively brief. But she also hadn't ever thought she would become a mermaid in the first place. Who knew where the future would lead her on that front?

"Really dad," she added. "It's alright."

Her father drummed his fingers against the table for a few moments, weighing all the factors in his head. Evie waited, again fiddling with her moon ring, the crickets still chirping around them.

"Then tomorrow I'll call Jonas and tell him," he at last said.

Evie nodded.

Her father nodded back, a small smile on his lips, and then gestured to Zac, who started walking over to the table. Right on time, apparently, because judging from how little steam now rose from the fish lasagna, it was already far from warm.

A few seconds later, Zac sat down, and her father started serving out their dinner, while Evie tried to get used to the idea of sharing her home with another temporary sibling for the first time in ten years.

* * *

The first thing he felt when he woke up was a pounding headache, as if someone was beating his skull with a hammer time and time again. Then he felt a strange salty smell that seemed exactly like sea air, and heard sounds that sounded like the squawking of sea birds, each one seeming to hit his head like another hammer strike. Almost the next instant, those were joined by what he, in the back of his sleepy and pounding brain, swore was a slight breeze running over his arms and legs.

If he didn't know any better, he'd swear he'd fallen asleep on the beach… and now that he thought of it, he didn't remember arriving at the hostel last night. All he remembered was going on a walk through Seaport Village after Karl went away to try his luck with some girl, watching the cars driving across the Coronado Bridge, and then… a strange blur of foggy pictures that made no sense, especially with the continuous hammering at his head.

This must be how someone felt whenever they got hungover, something Chris had never experienced, as he'd vowed to himself at the age of fourteen that he would never get drunk. Apparently he'd somehow broken his vow yesterday.

Or maybe he just hadn't slept enough. He'd just nestle into his pillow and doze off for a while longer.

He tried to do just that, but bolted to his feet on the same second, as he realized he hadn't tried to nestle his face into a pillow, but into _wood!_ Then he almost fell as the wooden surface underneath him swayed. He managed to crouch and hold onto what felt like a bench's seat. The surface beneath him righted itself, and then stabilized.

He was on a boat and had grabbed onto one of his seats.

A boat? Where had he gotten a boat? Had he somehow stolen a boat while he was drunk? What was he going to do? Who was its owner? How much would it cost to pay for it? What kind of trouble would he get in with the law for the theft?

And where was he, for that matter? For him to get into any of those problems, he'd at least need to be able to go back to San Diego.

 _Well, at least I can try to answer that question._ Chris thought.

Slightly calmer, Chris looked around to see if he could find reference points. Most sides showed him nothing but a blue ocean as far as the eye could see, but a small island thrust out of the sea to his right; apparently, he'd somehow been sober enough to anchor the boat close to land even in his drunkenness. It had a jagged appearance as if a giant carver had hammered a chisel into it over and over again before giving up on its task, and a sheer cliff rising from it, lit by the sun that rose behind him. Sea birds landed on and flew from it, squawking constantly as if doing so helped prevent other birds from crashing into them.

It would not make the prettiest picture Chris had ever seen, but he felt himself calming down at the sight. He'd heard about this place. It was Grim Island, a place he'd read about in a guide book, which said it was a nesting site for sea birds, not too far from the coast. If the boat had enough fuel, Chris could get back to the mainland easily enough.

Chris checked his watch. It was half past nine – exactly twelve hours after the last time he remembered checking on his watch. He briefly wondered if his watch had somehow stopped during the night, but then discarded the possibility. The watch was new, waterproof, and its second hand was still moving, so it most likely hadn't stopped. Also, the sun was low enough in the sky to match what his watch showed him, and judging from the way it lit up the cliff Chris saw, he had to on the island's eastern side. If he turned the boat's stern toward this side of the island and drove in a straight line, he'd be heading east, and thus he should be able to get back to land.

Slightly happier at the thought, Chris checked the fuel tank. It was not completely full – presumably thanks to the trip he'd taken here in his period of what could only be very extreme drunkenness – but it had more than enough for the forty kilometres back to the mainland. Driving in an absolutely straight line would be a bit difficult, but it still shouldn't be impossible for him to get back to land.

Given all the things that could have happened thanks to him being so stupid to get into a boat drunk and end up driving it at night into a place so little people came to, Chris knew he should consider himself lucky.

His head again pounded, as if the hammer in question had doubled in size and landed a hit on it at that very moment. Chris groaned from the pain. What exactly had he drunk yesterday? A bar's whole whisky supply?

Well, whatever it was, he had to get himself straightened out before trying to drive the boat. If he faltered along the way, he could get off course, and then he would really be in trouble. So first it was better to make sure his headache faded some, and then he'd try to make the trip.

Perhaps a quick swim would help. It couldn't be the kind of swim that was physically demanding, otherwise his headache would only get worse, but a dive close to the boat should be good for him.

With few options at hand, Chris took off his shirt, shoes, and socks, put the things in his pockets on the boat's seats, swung his legs over the boat's side, and slid off into the sea.

It seemed to be an instant relief. The coolness enveloping him pushed the headache back and the quietude underwater brought the pounding down to a dull thud. Inwardly sighing in relief, Chris pushed himself up to the surface, and then swam away from the boat with a few strokes.

And then he froze, as a strange ripple travelled through him. He seemed to be paralysed for a moment, and when the paralysis ended, his whole body seemed to have changed. Somehow, all of him seemed to be different now. And the most obvious was his lower half, which seemed to have changed completely into something.

Chris rolled over to float on his back and looked at below his waist. A scaly blue tail, quite longer than his legs, was there in place of his old lower limbs, floating horizontally on the water's surface.

* * *

Hidden behind a rock on the bottom of the sea, Hydrurga smiled as she watched the land boy's silhouette standing out against the water's surface. At least one part of their plan had worked. From now on, the land boy would grow a tail and have all assorted merman abilities whenever he touched water. He hadn't technically become a merman, as he had still been born a land boy, but for all practical purposes he was one. Even if the other spells she had put on him had somehow failed, he could still undermine the reputation of Nerissa's daughter in the Mako Pod.

But Hydrurga was sure the other spells hadn't failed. She knew her magic, and Sedna, nervous around her though she might be, was decently competent.

They still needed to wait a while before testing him to see if her spells had worked. If they tried them on right now, he might get confused, think something was odd, and take preventive measures. And even if the speills in question worked, Sedna and Hydrurga would still need to wait a while to see if the land boy would be at least tolerated by the Mako Pod.

If he wasn't, it wouldn't be that big an issue, but Hydrurga would rather he was.

Because if he was, then he could do what he wanted them to even more effectively.

* * *

For what had to be an eternity, Chris floated at the same spot, watching the blue tail extending in front of him with wide eyes, his brain a jumbled mess as he tried to make some sort of sense of this.

 _What on Earth is going on here?_

He had a tail?

He had a freaking tail?

He was a merman?

How could this be?

Was this some sort of very realistic dream? Was he on drugs rather than alcohol? Or had he somehow ended up drinking some sort of magic potion?

It had to be the first one. Mermen didn't exist – just like mermaids didn't exist for that matter. And magic potions didn't exist either. Somehow whatever alcohol he had drunk last night was still making effect.

 _It's the only explanation._

Still floating on his back, Chris pinched himself on his left upper arm to see if he would wake up. The pain was very much noticeable, and he probably would be having a bruise soon, but everything else remained the same. He was still floating on his back with a tail in place of his legs. And to add to the idea that it was magic, the ripped remnants of his shorts weren't even floating nearby, as if his clothes had been put away for the transformation.

 _What transformation?_ Chris shouted to himself. _This is a dream! Just wake up, blast you!_

Chris pinched himself again, this time on his right upper arm. Again, things remained the same as before, just as they did on the third, fourth, and fifth time he pinched himself, always on different parts of his body to see if any would be more efficient than the previous one. All he managed with it was to earn a collection of bruises, some of them on his tail, which he also pinched twice on different spots only to get pain sensations where he'd squeezed the scales and the flesh underneath.

Like it or not, somehow, this was real.

But how could it have happened?

 _I must have drank a magic potion rather than whiskey after all._ Chris thought.

 _Shut it!_ He replied to himself. Now was not the time for jokes. He had to figure this out if he was to know what to do next.

Mustering all his focus, Chris tried to think back on the previous night, a task made easy enough by the fact that somehow his headache had been healed by the transformation. The real memories still eluded him, but he thought he could remember a few flashes of a boat ride through the water, and others about him being in a frothing pool with the full moon shining directly above him and a strange golden-green tornado trying to consume him.

If he had to guess, that had to be some sort of magic transformation taking place.

 _Are you listening to yourself?_ Chris again shouted at himself. _Mermen don't exist! Mermaids don't exist! Everyone knows that!_

Maybe 'everyone' didn't know as much as they thought then. Or maybe he had just changed things. A few of them at least. Because he had somehow become a merman.

And it wasn't true that everyone knew mermen and mermaids didn't exist. Chris knew someone who claimed to have seen a mermaid. He had even claimed to have photographed her, although he had lost the camera before he could develop the picture. But then again, he had managed nothing with those claims but to come across as a fool, and even now, decades after the event, his sighting of the mermaid was a standing joke, with the most regular way of teasing or even mocking the man being through making references to what he'd spouted about mermaids.

All things considered, maybe the man wasn't such a fool after all. Chris' tail was unmistakable, and if mermen could exist, logic dictated that mermaids also could. Maybe the man Chris was thinking of had been telling the truth after all.

Of course, that also meant he could never know about this. Scratch that – no one could know about this. Chris might not have been a merman for long, but he already had no delusions of what would happen to him if he was caught. And while the man he was thinking of had sighted a mermaid rather than a merman, and reportedly hadn't thought about that for decades, he might very well resume his quest if he heard any more merpeople were around, and if he did, it wasn't farfetched at all that he would settle for the male of the species. And everyone else probably wouldn't mind a merman either.

Chris knew he might have to drop off the map. But where would he go? He might know a lot about the sea, but he still doubted he would be able to survive on it. Even if he managed to find food, there were plenty of predators that certainly wouldn't mind sinking their teeth into him. And besides, he couldn't just let his grandfather think he had died, which was what would happen if Chris just went off into the sea without telling anything to anyone. His grandfather would be heartbroken, and he wasn't young any longer. He might not get through such a thing. Even if Chris never told him about his 'scaly side', he had to, at the utter least, talk to him first.

And who knows, maybe he might even tell his grandfather about having become a merman. Now that he thought of it, going by some of the stories his grandfather told him, it sounded like he might actually be open to the existence of merpeople, or even actually know that they existed.

No. That would be far too much. Regardless of how most of his grandfather's stories had turned out to be true, him having known about mermaids seemed to be going a bit too far.

Or wasn't it? Merpeople weren't the kind of creature that could just crash down from the sky. If they existed, they probably had existed for millennia. Mermaid myths reportedly went back to over three thousand years. So they probably had existed at least since then, and it was conceivable some humans had run into them over such a long period. Perhaps his grandfather was one of those.

Or perhaps those stories Chris was thinking of fell into the few that just had to be fiction after all. Even if merpeople existed, it didn't mean everything told about them was true. For all Chris knew, his grandfather might just have a panic attack if he saw him with a tail.

Well, that was a bridge to be crossed when the time arrived. For now he just had to figure out how to talk to his grandfather, whether he ended up telling him the secret or not.

The problem was that it would be difficult to meet him with a tail… so the first thing to do was to see if he could get his legs back. But how? They had just vanished about ten seconds after he touched water!

Maybe they would return if he was dry then. So if he got onto the boat and dried himself, his legs should reappear. Then he could just get back to the hostel, go home today like it was planned, and talk to his grandfather after he arrived.

Or maybe he'd just die from dehydration like a dolphin washed ashore if he tried to get dry.

Well, if that started to happen, he could always roll back into the sea. After all, it wouldn't be far off, and even cetaceans could stand a few hours out of the water. If Chris felt he was getting too sick, he'd just get back in the water.

Either way, he'd only know what would happen if he tried it.

Praying that it would work, Chris rolled onto his stomach, and started a very clumsy doggy-paddle toward the boat he had somehow ended up sleeping in.

* * *

 **So here it was another chapter. Once more, no fancast, as there are no new important characters being introduced.**

 **This will be the last chapter for a bit, as I don't think I can get the next one out before Friday, and also I will be taking a few days off to watch Season 3 myself. I'm currently keeping my fingers crossed for the things I am apprehensive about not being as bad as I am fearing, but overall still looking forward to it.**

 **On an aside, for those reading this who are also fans of H2O - Just Add Water, you may want to keep an eye out for an incoming story of mine, which should be published within a few days.**

 **Said story is titled Aratoro, and is set in the same universe as Seas Of Change, although it can be read independently. It will be more H2O than Mako Mermaids, although technically both universes are already one and the same, and will become even more so once the third season premieres because of the incoming crossover.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Again, I'll try my best not to take too long with the next one.**


	8. Chapter 8: Mermen's Fears

**Well, here am I with a new chapter of 'Seas Of Change', the first one I get out since the premiere of Season 3 (4 on Netflix). To those who might be wondering, I have already watched the season... and honestly, it was kind of a mixed bag in the end. There were things about it that I liked, but there were also things I disliked, enough so that I don't regret having deliberately taken the AU path with this story. Again, I may incorporate elements of it in future chapters, but for the most part I am sticking to this AU.**

 **To whoever is an H2O fan, as of today this story is part of a universe titled 'Shifting Tides', of which 'Aratoro', my H2O story that will be out shortly, also is a part.**

 **Now that this is out of the way, let us begin.**

* * *

 **Chapter 8 – Mermen's Fears**

Much to Chris' relief, both theories he developed regarding his situation had worked.

First of all, his legs had indeed returned after he managed to dry himself; incredibly, the clothes he had been wearing when he got his merman tail had also come back. Of course, that was only valid for as long as he remained dry; if he got wet, even if it was only a single drop, his tail would return ten seconds after he touched water, and would stay there for as long as he was wet. That would complicate a lot of things in his life. For instance, he would, at best, have to be extremely careful washing the dishes or doing the laundry, and he could no longer go to the beach or to any swimming pool. Even things like walking by a garden with its sprinklers turned on or ending up in a building with those fire alarms that squirted water had now become dangerous. But still, it had to be better than ending up permanently stuck with a merman tail. At least this way he could actually go to his grandfather and tell him that he was alright, even if he never told him about his 'new side', for lack of a better description.

The second thing that made him feel better was that his guess regarding the direction he had to travel towards was right. After a little over an hour of travel, he managed to get back to San Diego. He didn't manage to find Seaport Village, but he managed to find a dock, and tie the boat up by it; thankfully, there hadn't been any police looking for him or for the stolen vessel. And a few minutes later, after getting to a road, he managed to take a taxi back to the White Shells Hostel, which the marine park had booked for those on the dolphin program.

Still, it was only when he got close to a now familiar beach and saw the three-floor building with white walls where everyone of the dolphin training program had been staying that Chris let out the massive sigh of relief that had been building for the whole trip. Even then, it was somewhat marred by the fact that just about everyone else at the dolphin program – a grand total of eight people, not counting him and Karl – was already outside with their bags packed and ready to go, standing or sitting by the mini-bus they had booked for the trip. Over half of them, both boys and girls, the youngest around Chris age, the oldest in their late twenties, looked quite grumpy, as if they had been waiting a long time. Only a few of them smiled when they saw Chris arriving on the cab; everyone else looked ready to clobber him. But Chris, heedless of any of them, simply paid the taxi driver and rushed into the hostel, sparing an apologetic grin and a quick apology to everyone else as he raced in.

As he got to the corridor, he raced over the blue and white tiles and got into the second door to the left. Like he expected, all the beds were already made, and Karl was sitting on one of them, his whole body shaking as if containing his impatience, and both his and Chris' bags already packed and standing beside him.

When he saw Chris, he stood up like a snake lashing out, but the aggressiveness was belied by the relief in his eyes.

"Chris!" Karl shouted. "Thank goodness you're here!"

He then stomped over to Chris and engulfed him in a hug that threatened to crack half his ribs. Chris grunted in pain, but returned it all the same and with equal strength; it was great to actually be back here to do it.

"Where have you been?" Karl shouted after the hug ended. "I was worried sick!"

Chris averted his eyes from Karl, an edge of guilt stabbing at him. Karl was his best friend. If anyone deserved to know about what had happened, he'd rank very high on the list. But unfortunately, Karl was also someone who simply could never know about his new merman tail. If he ever learned of it, it was far too likely that he would tell that secret to the one person that simply could never find out about it, the same one whose sighting of a mermaid was a standing joke amongst everyone who knew him.

He'd have to tell him something else. But he hadn't taken any time of his trip to plan a lie; he'd spent all of it worried he might never make it back. So he had to improvise. But what could he say?

"I'm waiting, Chris," Karl insisted. "Where have you been?"

Chris tried to come up with an explanation, but with only a few seconds to plan it, it was proving difficult. He tried to buy time by zeroing in on something he'd realized.

"Why didn't you call me? I would have answered."

It was a bit of a stretch of the truth, but not an awfully big one. He had checked his cell phone, and not only it was working just fine, but it had no missed calls. So Karl hadn't actually tried to call him – which helped to explain his concern.

Karl looked down, looking rather embarrassed.

"My phone had an accident after I tried to make my moves on the redhead, so I couldn't use it, and no one else would lend me theirs."

 _That's not much of a surprise._ Chris thought ruefully. Although Karl was generally held in better esteem than him, he also was a bit of an outcast among the group, because of how loaded his father was. It wasn't that much of a surprise to hear no one would lend him a phone, although it was a surprise to learn that his attempts at wooing the redhead he'd mentioned had somehow ended up with his phone ruined. He'd have to ask how it had gone later.

"But don't change the subject," Karl insisted. "Where have you been?"

Chris tried to quickly come up with anything, but after a brief and vain effort, all he managed to say was, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Karl put his thumb and forefinger to his chin while he puzzled out the issue. Then, an elated grin burst across his face.

"You met a girl and got some!" He clenched his fist as if he'd just achieved a difficult personal victory. "Way to go, Chris! I knew you had it in you!" He changed to a normal tune when he added, "But still, next time, try not to be with her for so long that you lose track of time like this."

In spite of himself, Chris couldn't repress a chuckle.

"That's not exactly what happened."

He didn't say exactly what it was, though. The longer Karl tried to guess, the more time Chris would have to decide what he would tell him.

Karl's enthusiasm faded like a candle's flame hit by a hurricane. He again put his thumb and forefinger to his chin, and after more seconds of thought, spoke up again. "Let me try another guess: you met a girl, but she turned out to be a big tease and had a big biker boyfriend who was waiting for you with his whole gang so they could use you as a punching bag and steal your wallet. You were able to escape, but you spent the rest of the night side-tracking them, and it was only now that you managed to come back."

Chris repressed an eye-roll. Karl always seemed to think that things started with meeting a girl. Then again, for all he knew, they might have; Chris didn't think he would ever take the initiative of drinking on his own. He still hoped Karl wasn't right, though, because that would mean he had cheated on Mimmi.

"Thankfully it wasn't so dramatic," Chris replied. He was going to add 'Or dangerous.' but he wasn't sure if riding a boat across unknown waters when he was lost in some alcohol-induced delirium was safer than escaping a gang of bikers out for his hide.

Karl again tried to think of something that could have happened to him – this time without putting his thumb and forefinger to his chin, and over a much longer period. It gave Chris time to come up with a reasonable idea. The best thing to do, he figured, would be telling Karl as much of the truth as he could while omitting the one important part.

Eventually, Karl dropped his arms without offering any guesses.

"What happened then?" he asked.

Not having had any better idea than the one he'd settled on, Chris started explaining, "I had a weird night." He paused to find the right words, and then added, "I got smashed, somehow ended up in a boat that wasn't mine, rode it all the way to Grim Island, and when I finally woke up, I had no idea of how I got there."

Karl's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You got smashed? But you avoid the booze like the plague because…"

"Believe me, I know," Chris interjected. It sickened him to think he'd broken his vow, especially given the reason he'd made said vow in the first place. "And for the record, I don't remember drinking a single drop of alcohol. But that must be what happened for me to have done everything I told you and not remember a second of it."

Karl's eyes narrowed even further.

"That's strange…" he mused. "If you had actually drunk something, you should at least remember drinking the first few glasses. And unless you picked whiskey from the get-go, which I know you wouldn't do, you wouldn't get drunk that fast. No one is so much of a lightweight. So if it's any consolation, you most likely didn't get smashed."

Chris shrugged.

"I'm not sure that's a real consolation." Realizing how it may have come across, he added, "On one hand, it is, because I certainly wouldn't want to break that vow, but on the other… if I didn't get smashed, I have no idea what may have happened to me."

Remembering the other possibility that had come to him while he was on the boat, he asked, "Do you think I may have been on drugs?"

"Nope," Karl replied without hesitation. "Even if any drugs had made you do what you said you did, you should at least remember taking them. Do you remember taking anything?"

Chris had tried to piece together what may have happened enough times, both during the boat ride and while in the taxi, to be able to answer that truthfully. "No. As far as I know, I didn't take anything of any sort. I was just looking at the sea, then all I get is confusing blurs, and next thing I know I'm waking up off of Grim Island in a boat I have no idea how I got."

Karl again put his thumb and forefinger to his chin, this time actually tapping his chin as if that would bring up stubborn thoughts that dwelled at the bottom of his brain. While he did, Chris searched every part of his own head he could think of in an effort to dig up the answer.

"Could you have been hit in the head maybe?" Karl suggested. "As in, by a kidnapper or something?"

Chris made as if to nod, the comment that it was a possibility already on the tip of his tongue, but both the gesture and the words died before they could be made or uttered.

"I don't remember blacking out, and I don't feel any bump, or any injury at all for that matter," he said. "And why would anyone just hit me on the head, stuff me into a boat, take me to a recognizable place I would know how to get back from, and leave without even taking my wallet or my phone?"

"Yeah," Karl conceded. "It's weird."

That was one word for it. And Karl didn't even know about the weirdest part of it all. Nor could he ever know, both for Chris' sake and for the sake of any others like him that might exist out there.

Still, he might have hit the nail on the head. If Chris didn't remember anything – well, practically anything – of what happened, then maybe it stood to reason that the memory had been wiped from him. If the memory had been wiped from him, it was conceivable that someone had done it – probably the same person or people who had taken him to that pool Chris could vaguely recall, the one where he had supposedly been turned into a merman. But who would turn him into a merman? Had any mermaid or mermaids 'fancied' him, to paraphrase Karl and turned him into a merman to kidnap him, and discarded the attempt when he had somehow turned out to be uncooperative? Had some crazy scientist decided to use him as a guinea pig for some utterly lunatic experience? Or had the island itself somehow sensed him and lured him there to turn him into a merman?

The last one wasn't all that logical, but when magic started to get involved, logic had no room in the picture. Either way, in all cases, why him specifically? What was so special about him that had made merpeople, humans, or the place itself handpick him?

Well, at least he had something to keep busy with during the several flights he would have to take on the return to the Gold Coast.

As that thought reminded him of something, Chris pointed out, "Well, we'd better not think about it anymore, at least for now. Everyone else is already waiting outside. If we stay here any longer, they'll barge in and drag us out by our noses."

Karl's eyes briefly widened in alarm. "Right. Let's get going."

He went back to the bed he'd been sitting on and picked up a dark-blue travelling bag and a dark-green one. Chris followed him over, but before picking up his own bags, turned to him and said, "By the way, before I forget, thanks for finishing packing my stuff for me."

Karl gave him a modest shrug. "No problem."

Chris reached down to pick up his black and dark-orange travelling bags, but again stopped midway through the gesture and turned to Karl.

"Everything's in there, right?"

"I double checked," Karl replied with a grin. "Everything you brought is in there. Even the dirty socks you never got around to washing over the last two weeks are in there."

Chris snapped into a straight position in alarm. "What dirty socks that I never got around to washing over the last two weeks?"

He realized the answer the moment Karl started chuckling, shaking as if he was trying to hold back full-blown laughter.

"I'm just messing with you," he replied when he managed to hold back the chuckles. "Come on, let's go."

He certainly had messed with him. In spite of the reassurance that it was a joke, Chris double-checked his part of the hostel room himself, before he and Karl finally walked outside to meet the others, at a time when the mini bus' driver was already standing outside, leaning against the door with a scowl on his middle-aged bearded face. Thankfully, they were spared anything worse than a few glares, and in less than ten minutes, all of them were inside the mini bus heading toward San Diego's airport, reminiscing about their almost three months in the United States and discussing their plans to make use of what they had learned once they were back to the Gold Coast.

Chris was the only exception to that rule, too consumed by something he had realized during the boat ride back to the mainland, but which he had been trying not to think about until he truly couldn't help himself. Him having become a merman had done a lot more than making a lot of house duties difficult or put a dampener in any social life he might get. It had ruined any chances of doing the thing he wanted the most.

After all, there was no way he could work with dolphins if simply touching a drop of water would cause him to grow a tail. He wasn't dumb enough to think that in real life relationships between merpeople and dolphins were like those in cartoons; for all he knew, the dolphins would find him tasty and decide they wanted to sample him. And even if they didn't, there was no way he could simply work _only_ with the dolphins. Chris was old enough to know that any kind of job had to have people other than him involved. But from today on, he couldn't have any job that involved touching water as a regular occurrence.

 _Great._ Chris thought more than once during the ride to the airport. _Just great._

Against all the odds, he had managed to learn to connect with dolphins, been accepted at the dolphin training program, and finished as the best of the group. And now, right when his dream was within his fingertips, it was gone again, this time for good.

 _What am I going to do now?_

* * *

A bit later, on the other side of the planet, Evie stood with Zac before the address Doctor Blakely had provided, looking from the paper her boyfriend held to the massive house before them.

"That's a fancy home he's got here," Zac mused as he looked up at what, according to his father, was Doctor Colbert Thomas' residence.

"Indeed," Evie agreed.

That house was a huge building, with outside walls painted a silvery grey, and four floors. The first two were indistinguishable from the outside, the third had balconies big enough to house two tables for having meals and a parasol for each – like one of the balconies that Evie could see did – and the fourth looked like a terrace of sorts. All the windows had smoked glass on them and panes the size of an ordinary door. Also, in addition to the imposing look, the house also was at a prime location, less than two hundred metres from the beach.

All in all, it seemed strangely similar to Rita's house, and yet at the same time quite different.

But Evie wasn't here to do amateur real estate comparisons. She was here to ask Doctor Thomas about Alana.

So, after one last look at the huge residence, she steeled herself, took a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell's button with her right index finger. It made an old fashioned ringing that was no longer commonly found.

Evie stood as calmly as she could, trying to repress the pulsing in her throat. When Zac saw it, he put an arm around her shoulders to calm her down.

No one came to the door.

"Maybe they're still asleep?" Zac suggested after about half a minute had passed. "It's early after all."

"They may be," Evie conceded. "But I rang the bell for quite some time."

"Maybe Doctor Thomas sleeps deep." Zac suggested. "Or maybe he was up late last night and is too fast asleep to hear the bell."

Well, he could be. Evie knew enough about doctors to be aware that some specialties weren't afforded the luxury of regular sleep schedules. But if Doctor Thomas was a researcher, he supposedly would be able to keep somewhat of one.

"I'll try again," Evie decided.

She put her finger to the button once more, this time for longer. The same ringing sound came. But once more, no one answered.

"Maybe no one's home," Zac pointed out.

Evie frowned. "Maybe. But it seems a bit early. It's not even seven o'clock."

Zac's brow furrowed in thought. "If the guy's as successful as everyone says, maybe he starts early."

That also made sense. In fact, the possibility of Doctor Thomas leaving for work early had been the main reason Evie had decided to visit him at this time, because she had been afraid she wouldn't catch him if she showed up any later. She knew it was a bit early for such things, but as far as she could tell it was still 'acceptably early'. After all it wasn't as if she was showing up at three o'clock in the morning.

"A third one for luck?" Evie asked.

Zac shrugged. "Why not?"

Evie rang the bell a third time, for longer than on either of her two previous attempts. But again, no one opened the door, even after two minutes that Evie measured on her watch.

"Maybe we should try to come back at the end of the day instead," Zac said.

It might be better. Apparently it either wasn't 'acceptably early' when it came to opening the door, or Doctor Thomas was such an early bird that he was already gone from his home before seven.

A bit disappointed, Evie made as if to turn around, but a series of clicks froze her in place.

Someone was unlocking the door from the inside.

Then, the door opened inwards with silence that conveyed well maintained hinges, and a brown-haired man with blue eyes who seemed to be in his mid-forties peeked from the inside, dressed in a white bathrobe with grey pyjama pants underneath.

Evie recognized him, It was Doctor Thomas. She and Zac had tried to learn more about him yesterday, and, among other things, had managed to find some pictures of him. All of them were a bit old, but the general appearance was a dead ringer, minus a few wrinkles he must have gotten since the most recent picture Evie and Zac saw was taken.

"Can I help you?" Doctor Thomas asked them, a stern look on his face.

Evie tried not to gulp. She had never had to handle such issues, or to approach someone perceived as a minor celebrity. He probably could walk around the streets without being recognized, but he might also be well known to the point that people asking about him was a regular occurrence. She wished she could know how to approach him, but his presence seemed to have somehow blocked her throat.

"Are you Doctor Colbert Thomas?" Zac asked before she could speak.

Evie flashed him a grateful look. She knew he had met enough relatively famous doctors to have more of an idea on how to approach them.

"I am," he replied, although something in him seemed to convey he knew their question hadn't been a true question. "And you are?"

"Zac Blakely and Evie McLaren," Zac replied. "We would like to talk to you for a bit. I promise we won't be long."

Doctor Thomas didn't slam the door on their faces, but he didn't open it further to invite them in, and his look remained as stern as before. "You know it's early, don't you?"

"We know, but it's important, and we weren't sure of the best time to catch you," Zac explained. "It will be quick, we promise."

A long silence followed. Then, Doctor Thomas opened the door a bit further and stood before them, his stern gaze a tad softer. "Alright then, how can I help you?"

As if the question had been all it took to override the blockage in her vocal cords, Evie managed to speak up. "I recently met the daughter of one of your last patients. She seemed to be in a really rough spot, and I'm worried about her, so I would like to talk to her. But she didn't give me her address when we met, and the only way I thought I could find it was by asking you."

The relaxation in Doctor Thomas' expression vanished in a flash.

"Her whom?" he asked in a voice even sterner than the one he'd initially addressed them with. "The patient's daughter or the patient? And why do you think asking me is the best option? Why did you even have the idea of asking me to begin with?"

Evie tried not to frown. She could imagine why a doctor would be reluctant to share that information, but there was something about Doctor Thomas that made him seem strangely defensive, as if he thought Evie was a private investigator trying to get dirt on him rather than someone concerned.

"The daughter," Evie replied in her calmest tone. "Her name is Alana, she's pale, has red hair down to her waist, blue eyes, and an Irish accent. And we came to you because she said that you took care of her until her mother's funeral, and that you paid for the funeral yourself; it seemed to us that you might know where she is."

"Even if that's true, why should I tell you?" Doctor Thomas countered, his tone polite, but with an expression as severe as ever. "You do know that doctors are required to keep medical confidentiality, don't you?"

Evie inwardly recoiled as if she had been hit by a stone. Zac let out a mute gasp as if he'd been socked in the gut.

"We were under the impression Alana never was your patient…" Zac again managed to speak before her.

Doctor Thomas' stern look faltered briefly; then it returned as strong as before.

"You're right, she wasn't. But I still see no reason I should tell you. For all I know, you may be gangsters who want to sway her into criminal life or bullies who want to kick her while she's down."

Although those words seemed the verbal equivalent of fired bullets, this time Evie managed to take them in stride. For some reason, they seemed to make Doctor Thomas' behaviour up until now more natural.

"The best we can say to that is that we're not either of those things," Evie replied. "We're just worried about Alana." Knowing she had no way of actually proving that, she explained. "I know you only have our word to go on, but our word is also everything we have to give."

For the second time since he'd opened the door, Doctor Thomas' stern expression softened ever so slightly.

"Please," Evie insisted. "We're worried about her."

"We promise that if she doesn't want to see us, we'll leave her alone," Zac added.

Neither of them said anything else. Evie knew that if this could not persuade him to give them Alana's address, nothing else could. She could sense from Zac's stance and tone that he had the same opinion.

Once more, Doctor Thomas regarded them for a long moment, his eyes as piercing as an eagle's. Then, his harsh expression melted into a normal one.

"Well, I guess everyone needs to believe in the best in the world on occasion." He stepped away from the door and started to close it. While it was still partially open, he added, "I'll be right back with the address of her group home."

Then he closed the door silently, while Zac and Evie waited. A few moments later, he returned with a white slip of paper where he'd scrawled an address.

"Here it is," he said as he gave it to Evie. "And for what it's worth, I hope you can help Alana."

"So do we," Evie replied as she slipped the paper into her pocket. "And thank you," she added as she gave him a small thankful smile.

Doctor Thomas bowed slightly at them both.

"Good morning. And good luck." He again started retreating into his home like a turtle into its shell. "Now if you will excuse me…"

Without waiting for them to say whether they excused him or not, he closed the door. This time, Zac and Evie could hear the tell-tale whirs of it being locked from the inside as soon as Doctor Thomas was back in.

"Cheery fellow," Zac quipped with an amused smile as the two of them turned around and started their way toward the café. "But I guess he wasn't that bad."

"And definitely not so much of a moron that he should have stuck to male underwear modelling," Evie added, remembering what Doctor Blakely had said Harrison Bennett had told about Doctor Thomas.

Zac chuckled at the remark, knowing what she meant. "Knowing him like I do, I'd say Harrison Bennett said that because he's jealous his own modelling career never got off the ground in spite of his many connections."

Evie chuckled as well. Much to her surprise, when she had researched about him she had learned that Doctor Thomas had indeed done male modelling in his youth, and some of it had indeed been in male underwear modelling. But that was all she knew about it; all the pictures she'd seen of him were in suits at his lectures and things of the like.

They said nothing else for about the next ten or so steps. Then, Zac changed subjects.

"So what are we going to do now? Do we visit Alana today after all, or do you want to stick to the original plan?"

Evie thought for a bit. She did want to see Alana, to know how she was doing, and knew that now that she had the address she could do it whenever she wanted. But she didn't want to look like she was barging into Alana's life. While the Irish mermaid had liked her, as far as Evie could tell, there was still a chance she was reading things wrong. And it had only been one day since they had last met.

"I think I'll still give her today to go to the café of her own will," Evie replied. "If she doesn't, I'll visit her tomorrow, after we're done waiting for Chris with Mimmi. I already took tomorrow off for that anyway, it's more practical to stick to it."

A hint of a frown made its way onto Zac's face at the reminder that he would be meeting Chris tomorrow at around this time. He had been the one suggesting to go with Mimmi to meet Chris at the airport, as his sister still had no idea what the place was like. Ondina had also decided to join in, probably in an effort to drive Chris away, given how she seemed to treat 'Chris' as synonymous with 'terrorist'. In spite of her reservations, the Northern Mermaid had accepted, after making Zac and Ondina promise several times that they wouldn't interrogate Chris as if he was a criminal. In the end, Evie had offered to join them as well, out of concern for all the involved parties.

The slight frown vanished from Zac's face as he spoke up again. "Do you want me to go with you tomorrow?"

Evie smiled at him. "If you have nothing else to do, I'd be glad to." Then a frown of her own appeared on her face as she remembered one issue that, although important, it was also one she hadn't thought about lately. "Let's just hope Alana doesn't mind mermen."

Zac grimaced at the reminder. Although some of the pod's mermaids still gave him the side-eye, by now he seemed to have mostly forgotten that mermaids and mermen were meant to be enemies at all.

"If she does, I promise I'll leave you alone."

Evie held his hand and squeezed his fingers reassuringly. "I'm sure she won't, once she gets to know you." She smiled at him and then told him a few well-chosen words. "You're great to be around."

Zac gave her a smile of his own. "Throwing my compliments back at me, are you?"

"Well, seeing as this one does fit you, I thought it would be alright," Evie replied with playful innocence.

Zac chuckled at the answer, and then leaned forward and kissed her cheek as the two of them continued their way toward the café.

* * *

Inside his home, Colbert Thomas took deep breaths to calm himself down, trying to ignore the beads of sweat running down his body. That had been one of the most harrowing experiences of his life. It had been years since he last saw a living mermaid other than his wife and daughter, and yet they still had the power to instil utter terror in him.

Some might call it an irrational reaction, but he had learned since he could hear how dangerous mermaids were, and had almost experienced it personally when he was only a boy. Granted, he knew there were a few exceptions, as he'd married one of them to begin with, but his wife had proved herself after the trouble she got in because of him. As a whole, though, mermaids were the biggest danger in the ocean for those like him. Worse than sharks, worse than pollution, worse than sightings by land people. For a merman like him, there was no bigger peril.

"Good morning."

Colbert barely managed to keep himself from jumping at the sound, and couldn't hold himself back from quaking and shoving his hand against the door.

 _Blast it!_ He thought. _That mermaid really did a number on my nerves…_

He turned around as calmly as he could. The only mermaid he didn't fear besides his wife stood in front of him, still in the oversized white t-shirt and light blue pyjama pants she slept in, and with her hair still messy from sleep.

"Good morning, Neelam," he greeted, hoping she hadn't noticed his nervousness.

Her eyes were still half-closed and bleary, but she asked, "Who were you talking to?" At his look, which he hoped had gotten across as blank, she added, "I heard you talking to someone."

"A couple of bores," he replied with a nonchalant tone. As Neelam narrowed her eyes in puzzlement, he added, "Door to door salespeople."

Neelam's nose scrunched up as if she'd caught a bad smell. "This early in the morning?"

Colbert gave her a shrug that he hoped was indifferent. "I guess some of them start early."

"What were they trying to foist on us?" Neelam insisted.

Colbert raised a hand and faked a grin and a chuckle. "Nothing we needed, believe me."

He hoped she wouldn't push it much further. He was running out of ways to deflect her questions or answer them insincerely. Thankfully, his daughter then showed the usual foggy mind she had upon waking up. "I'm going for my morning swim. I'll start breakfast after I'm back."

This time, he managed to smile genuinely. "Thanks, sweetheart."

Neelam smiled back as she turned around and walked away. A few moments later, he heard her walking downstairs to the basement, toward their home's other entrance, the one that lead to the sea, and which all of them used every morning to wash up, as using a bathtub was difficult for those like them, and sea water cleansed them just fine.

Moments after the sounds of Neelam's steps faded, those of a second set of feet reached his ears. Then, Tanushri walked downstairs, wearing an ankle-length robe, and with a no-nonsense look on her face. In spite of that, Colbert wasn't startled. He had a pretty good guess of what was coming, and he had handled it before more than once.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she went straight to the heart of the matter. "Neelam may have fallen for that thing about door to door salesmen, but I don't. Who was it?"

She was careful not to speak too loudly, but her narrowed eyes and the flat line her mouth made left no room for her state of mind. Unease started to creep up Colbert, not because of his wife's expression, but because of what he'd have to tell her. Lying to Neelam or to Praveer was one thing; lying to Tanushri was another.

"A mermaid," he replied. "And her boyfriend, if I had to guess."

Tanushri's eyes widened in very clear terror, and she gasped in alarm. Then, as if her brain had worked out a particular thing he'd said, she frowned in puzzlement.

"Boyfriend?" she asked in a whisper. "Not plaything?"

"I guess not," Colbert insisted. Noticing her puzzlement, he explained, "I know it's strange, but he didn't look like he was enchanted or anything. His eyes were clear, and he spoke to me normally, so he either doesn't know she's a mermaid or she somehow trusted him enough to tell him, as unlikely as that sounds."

His wife's puzzlement only seemed to increase. "How do you know she was a mermaid?"

"She had a moon ring," Colbert pointed out. "And she wore it on the proper finger. So she's a mermaid."

Knowing she was a mermaid was the one reason he had hesitated so long before opening the door, even though he had been there not long after the first ring. He had actually been very tempted not to open the door at all, but he had also known that the mermaid could come back if she didn't get what she wanted the first time around, so he had gathered his bravery and decided to get it over with.

"What did they want?" Tanushri asked, her puzzlement now lower.

"They were looking for Alana." He saw his wife looking more puzzled again, and replied to the question that he guessed was coming. "They said that they knew her, but also didn't know where to find her, and they guessed I might have her address because she apparently told them about me."

His wife no longer looked puzzled, but she now looked wary. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and then asked, "What did you do?"

"I gave them her address," Colbert replied.

Concern flashed across Tanushri's eyes. "Won't that be dangerous for her?"

Colbert tried to hold back his guilt. He had indeed been a bit anxious about giving away Alana's secret. But it still seemed the best thing to do, and he would explain to his wife why he thought so.

"If we didn't give it to them, the first thing they'd do would be trying to find it out via alternative means, some of which might involve them breaking into our house and finding out about us. This way, they'll leave us alone."

 _Hopefully._ He thought, but didn't add.

As far as he could tell, they would. It was impossible to know everything about people just from a few minutes of interaction, especially when a half-closed door had been serving as a barrier for most of it, but he was pretty sure that they actually meant what they said about Alana. And after all, the average mermaid, for all her prejudice and aggression toward mermen like him, was kind to fellow mermaids and to other sea creatures. Apparently, most even did not mind land people that much. Mermen were the only ones they had problems with.

"But can we really be sure we haven't just put her in danger?" Tanushri went forth, the concerned look still in her eyes.

"I think we haven't," Colbert reassured in his calmest voice.

Tanushri's eyes narrowed. "But do you know we haven't?"

Colbert held back a tired sigh. Most of the time, he loved watching Tanushri's maternal side, but as far as Alana was concerned, it had been a major source of worry for him. She had, on a few occasions, brought forth the possibility of them telling her they were merpeople, but Colbert had always put his foot – or tail, depending on when she brought up the issue – down and said it was best not to. He could see where Tanushri was coming from; he too had grown to care for Alana. And like he had told Neelam, if she was a mermaid who had fallen into a moon pool, he would have agreed to tell her. But DNA tests he had made on her proved that Alana was a born mermaid, although her mother was a land girl who had fallen into a moon pool. How that was possible, he had no idea; perhaps magic somehow caused the children of merpeople born from humans who fell into moon pools to automatically be born merpeople. Never having met any mermaid with a human parent other than Alana, he could not say.

Either way, it was too dangerous, especially because Alana had a moon ring. If Colbert had to guess, that meant her mother had somehow been accepted by a pod – probably because she never told them she was a human – which meant both she and Alana knew how mermaids viewed mermen.

But Tanushri kept giving him a pointed look, and by now, Colbert knew there was only one way out of it.

"I'll check on Alana tomorrow." As Tanushri made as if to speak up, he added, "I already have today's schedule too full, and if I ran into those two there, it would look too suspicious."

Tanushri's gaze pacified in agreement, but he knew from it that she wasn't done either.

"Take Neelam with you," his wife requested. "You know she wants to see Alana."

Colbert wanted to argue, but if he had to guess, his wife would just persuade him again in the end. And besides, not only it was Neelam's right to see Alana, but it would be better if she did it with him watching to make sure she wouldn't do anything foolish.

"Fine," he conceded. "If she understands the importance of behaving properly in front of Alana, as well as those two if we get to see them."

"She will," Tanushri stated.

In spite of himself, Colbert did believe that. Neelam wore her heart on her sleeve – when she wore sleeves at least – but she wasn't an idiot. But even if he didn't, his time to ask his wife how she knew had run out; a set of steps from the last resident in their home had just started up.

Moments later, Praveer showed up at the top of the stairs, clad in boxer briefs and a muscle man t-shirt.

"Morning dad, morning mom," he said when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

Both of them wished him good morning in return, trying to look casual, but he must have noticed something off about him and Tanushri, because he locked his eyes on them.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked.

Tanushri shrugged and replied, "Just a couple of door to door salespeople and your sister leaving for her morning swim."

Colbert inwardly sighed in relief at seeing Tanushri going along with his excuses. If possible, he wanted to spare both their children any concern, even though they were already adults. But Praveer didn't seem persuaded by the remark. Colbert decided to try another approach. "We were going now as well, if you'd like to join us."

He held up his arms at the offer.

"I'm no longer five years old. I can swim on my own." He looked toward the door to the basement, and then added with a smirk, "But I guess I'll go with you until we're in the sea proper."

"It works for us," Colbert replied. Knowing of something that would pull Praveer's mind away from any suspicions, he put an arm around Tanushri's waist and pulled her to himself. "Doesn't it, dear?"

Just like he expected, Praveer immediately made the most theatrical looking gag he could possibly come up with, like he always did whenever Colbert and Tanushri were physically affectionate, even though it had been years since he had been at his most disgusted at the thought.

"Yes, it does," Tanushri replied with a smile and an overly sweet voice, having gotten his hint.

The two of them chuckled as they walked down the hallway to the basement's door, with Praveer again making a mock-gag as he followed them.

* * *

 **So here is another chapter... and again, no fancasting because of the lack of new characters.**

 **I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I'll try not to take too long with the next one.**


	9. Chapter 9: A Failed Approach

**So, here is one more chapter. Another rather slow one, but at least we finally get some action around here, and also get to learn a bit more about certain characters.**

 **I hope you enjoy.**

 **Credit note: The song _Plaisir d'amour,_ by Jean-Paul-Égide Martin, was written in 1784, and is, as far as I know, in the public domain. As far as I know, the same holds true for the poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian from where the lyrics were taken, as well as for _Célestine_ , the novel where said poem appeared.**

* * *

 **Chapter 9 – A Failed Approach**

Seated on his tall lifeguard chair, Cameron Mitchell, known to his friends as Cam, took a sip out of a large bottle of water he had with him, feeling generally at peace with himself and the world.

It definitely was a good thing living in the Gold Coast, as, in spite of noticeable variations depending on the season, summer weather basically lasted all year round, and thus people could go to the beach whenever they wanted. This also meant that beach-related jobs did not stick to the summer, and for Cam, that meant he could enjoy his lifeguard post for the whole year. Even though chicks didn't actually seem to dig the lifeguard uniform, and there were sometimes jerks like Luca and Gabe to deal with, he overall liked being a lifeguard. For how dense he seemed to be when it came to a lot of other things, at least he'd already done some good in his life with this job.

Today was a relatively slow day; while the winter here was warm, it still caused somewhat of a reduction on beach attendance, and the bathers in his area had so far kept out of trouble. So he had been able to sneak a few moments to look through the binoculars at a very special girl that had been swimming for a long while now: his girlfriend Carly, who had the morning off and, like on other days, had decided to enjoy it at the beach. If he had to guess, she'd be coming out of the water any time soon, and then, once his shift ended, they could go have a lunch date before she went to the café and he returned to the beach.

Satisfied at the thought, Cam screwed the bottle's lid back on and set the plastic container down beside him.

"Nice day, eh?"

Cam looked toward the basis of his lifeguard chair. A green-eyed guy with light brown hair in a buzz cut was looking up at him with apparent interest. Cam fought back a worried look. The guy looked ordinary, clad in a light blue polo shirt, white shorts, and dark-blue sneakers, but Carly and David had made Cam aware of the situation Mimmi and Ondina were facing. This guy matched the description he had been given, and the cartoonish German accent Cam had heard even in that short sentence was a real giveaway. This should be Gunnar, the one everyone suspected was the latest fish boy in town.

"Somezing wrrong?" the guy asked, his eyes narrowed.

"No, not really," Cam replied, trying to keep his heart from pounding. "It's just I don't get a lot of chats at work. Believe it or not, most people who come to the beach don't notice the lifeguard."

The guy smirked. "Well, some of us know how to show ourr apprreciation for zose zat keep ze beaches safe."

Cam smirked in what he hoped looked like a grateful gesture, but which to him felt like the grimaces he made when he had to eat broccoli as a kid. If this guy was a fish boy and was talking to him, he probably wanted something Cam could provide. Cam had no idea what it was, but he also wasn't going to ask, nor was he going to accept. He'd made up his mind about trying to get a tail on the day Erik had tortured him.

What should he do then? He couldn't exactly tell the guy to sod off; he still remembered his last confrontation with a hostile merman who had been turned down.

And come to think of it, was he really a fish boy? The fish chicks apparently only thought he was one because he seemed to know what they were and hadn't done anything to expose them yet. He could just be a regular guy like Cam, and if he was, Cam figured he could beat him in an old-fashioned fist fight if it came down to it.

"Well, thanks for the appreciation, mate," Cam finally said, realizing he had to keep the guy's attention lest he be accused of being rude.

"No prroblem," the guy replied with a knowing smile.

Cam tried to smile in return, but it was difficult when he had no idea what to do.

Maybe a good start would be figuring out whether this guy was the Gunnar that Mimmi and Sirena had mentioned, and whether he was a fish boy.

And it only took Cam a few seconds to have an idea on how to do that.

"It's Camerron Mitchell, rright?" the guy asked.

"Yup, that's me," Cam replied in an indifferent tone as he pulled out his smartphone. "And you?"

"I'm Gunnarr Errxleben," the guy replied, his eyes narrowed as he eyed Cam's phone.

 _Great._ Cam thought. _With that name, he's bound to be the guy who's been hassling the fish chicks. But let's just find a way to be sure._

"Can I talk to you?" Gunnar asked.

"In a minute," Cam replied as he activated the smartphone's camera function. "Just let me check this weather report…"

He made a show of running his finger amongst the phone's screen as if he was scrolling down some real time weather report that a few apps could provide, while in reality he was messing with the camera's zoom and brightness functions. After a few seconds of doing so, he pressed the icon meant to photograph what he was seeing. A click rose from the phone as it took Gunnar's picture.

"What is zat noise?" the German asked.

"A sound effect," Cam replied nonchalantly as he saved the picture.

To lend more weight to his words, Cam took a few more random pictures that he passed off as more check-ups on weather reports, and then put the phone away. A scowl started to appear on Gunnar's face.

"I thought you said I could talk to you," he said, looking like he was trying not to sound whiny.

"I told you, in a minute," Cam replied in the tone he used to scold Ned whenever the boss was stuck with duties and left him to serve as babysitter to the brat.

He gave a look through the water to make a show of being attentive to potential people in distress, but in reality, he was making sure that Carly wasn't swimming anywhere near close to where Gunnar would end up running into the sea if the rest of his plan came to fruition. Last thing he needed was for her to deal with him in a place where a water jar wouldn't do her any good.

To his relief, she was already coming out of the water and heading toward him. It would suffice if she had been close to shore and to several other swimmers, but this was even better. Now the rest of his plan could be carried out.

"So, what it is you want to tell me?" Cam asked as he took his hand to the bottle of water beside him, which thankfully still had quite a lot of water in it.

Gunnar smirked as if he was about to tell Cam he'd won the lottery, "I have an offer for you."

"I see…" Cam mused as he looked directly into Gunnar's eyes while he discreetly unscrewed the bottle's lid.

Then Cam abruptly jerked his gaze away from Gunnar's and looked out at the sea and let out a loud gasp, doing his best to deliberately widen his eyes in alarm that he hoped would come across as true.

To his relief, Gunnar's head also snapped toward the sea.

Cam then tipped his water bottle over so that all of its contents in it fell over Gunnar. The dude gasped like Cam had seen both fish boys and fish chicks doing the moment a single drop of water hit them.

"Oops," Cam said in a fake innocent as Gunnar turned to look at him. "How clumsy of me."

Gunnar glowered at him, his arms raised as if he wanted nothing more than to squeeze his hands into fists around Cam's neck. But the gesture lasted all of a second before he bolted into the water and dove into the breaking surf, not bothering to take off his clothes on the way.

He was a fish boy alright.

 _Yup._ Cam thought as he smirked to himself. _The Camster still has it._

* * *

Far away from the shore, on a patch of sea no one was swimming at, Gunnar growled in fury, his tail swishing rigidly from the anger he felt flowing through him.

His plan to get more intelligence on the mermaids through Cam had failed. Gunnar had thought it would work, as from what he knew the guy was still bitter over the fact his attempt to get a tail all those months ago hadn't worked, but for him to have behaved in such a manner, he had to be in league with the mermaids. He must not have a tail himself, otherwise he wouldn't be in this lifeguard job, but clearly he knew about Gunnar's own, which could only be because of the mermaids. And the way he'd checked for it suggested he wasn't interested in having Gunnar as a friend or in anything Gunnar could have for him, including a tail.

Apparently Gunnar was in way more over his head than he thought. Adopting that blasted fake German accent to begin with had been an even worse idea than he first thought, as that had to be at least the main thing that tipped him off. But he wasn't sorry for not having dropped it in his attempts at interrogating Cam. If Cam had guessed who he was through any other means and noticed the accent discrepancy, things would have been bad for him anyway.

Point was, it seemed Gunnar was on his own.

Hardly a novelty. The system that mermen had adopted to survive on land condemned most of them to spending their whole lives on their own. Some were lucky enough to make meaningful connections, and a few of those actually managed to keep said connections, but most of them lived out the bulk of their lives alone, without families or friends. Gunnar had been somewhat lucky in that regard, in that he'd managed to make a meaningful connection that had lasted several years, but most of the time, the rule also applied to him.

All things considered, it was better for him to go away from this beach before he managed to get himself into trouble. But first, he was going to at least leave a little something for Cam, just so the guy wouldn't think he could push him around and not suffer consequences.

Pacified by the thought, Gunnar pushed himself to the surface, right in front of Cam's chair. Sure enough, the guy zeroed in on him after a few seconds. Then, the nerve of him, he pointed the middle and index fingers of his right hand at his eyes, and then at Gunnar, in the classic 'I'm watching you' gesture.

Gunnar returned it by slicing his finger across his throat with the most menacing look he could muster.

But rather than looking scared, Cam's shoulders quaked as if he was repressing a sudden urge to laugh. Gunnar held back a shudder of rage. Not only had the guy made him look like a fool, but he had the nerve to find it funny!

Repressing a surge of anger at the fact he hadn't managed to intimidate the traitorous simpleton, Gunnar turned around and dove, his tail briefly rising out of the water before he made his way to a spot where he could dry himself and go back to the aquarium for the afternoon's first guided tour.

The mermaids and their moronic ally might have won the first battle, but the war had just begun.

* * *

After Gunnar vanished from sight, Cam climbed down from his lifeguard chair to greet Carly with a towel tucked under his arm, any thoughts about the fish boy's true status gone from his mind. His true self had been clear enough when he surfaced without any shirt covering his shoulders, but any remaining doubts had been erased the moment Gunnar turned around and briefly raised a scaly blue tail above the surface when he dove away.

"Enjoyed your swim?" Cam asked as he extended the towel to Carly.

She took it from his hands and started drying herself. "It was lovely. A bit cold maybe, but still lovely."

Cam glanced out at the sea again, both to watch for any people that might need his help and to see if Gunnar was still in the vicinity. He found neither.

"I take it that was the merman Mimmi and Ondina were worried about?" Carly asked as she folded the towel after drying herself.

Cam turned to look at her. "He should be." As an admittedly remote possibility came to him, he added, "Unless there's another merman named Gunnar living in the area."

Carly snickered when Cam pointed that out.

"At any rate, we'll know once I show them the picture of him that I took," Cam added.

There was a brief glint of admiration in Carly's eyes.

"How did you do it?"

"Didn't I tell you I'm a man of many talents?" Cam inquired with a smirk.

The only answer he got to that was a playful smack on his shoulder.

After a brief pause in the conversation to look around the area for anyone in distress, Cam carried on. "At any rate, thanks for coming out of the water when you did. It saved me a whole lot of time in keeping him busy while I tried to figure out whether he was a merman or not."

Carly wiped a stray drop of water from her face with the towel. When she finished, it was as if her calm had also been wiped away, as she now had a worried look on her face.

"What did the guy want from you? I saw him standing by your chair before you splashed him."

Cam shrugged. "He said he had an offer for me." Then he remembered something else. "And he knew my name."

Carly flinched, alarm clear on her face. "How?"

Cam frowned, also puzzled by the issue now that he thought of it. Technically, there were plenty of ways for the guy to have gotten to know his name, but there shouldn't be any reason for him to have gone to the trouble of finding out. If he'd had an offer, he must have wanted something from him, but Cam had no idea either of what he wanted or of what he had to offer.

"I never got around to asking him," Cam replied. "Or to listening to his offer, for that matter."

Again, he paused on his conversation to look for anyone in distress. He didn't see anyone, but he'd better end this conversation before too long. If the boss caught him chatting on duty, he'd get quite a tongue-lashing.

But as he caught Carly's worried face after his brief search for anyone in distress, he realized it still had to go on for a bit longer.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

Carly took a few seconds to reply, as if she'd wanted to work a few things out first.

"It's strange that he knew your name. No offense meant, but 'the Camster'…" Carly actually made quotes with her fingers as she said the name, a gesture belied by the playful smile on her lips "…isn't exactly an international celebrity. For him to know about you, someone must have told him."

True. For the guy to know Cam, especially to know him well enough to have an offer for him, someone must have told him about him. Someone who would also know Cam well enough and not be too worried about spreading certain dark aspects of him to others. And there was only one person – well, merperson – who fit the profile.

"Oy! Mitchell!"

Cam inwardly groaned as he heard that voice. It wasn't from the one who would have ratted him out to Gunnar, but it was someone who he wanted to see even less.

All the same, he turned around, lest he be accused of being rude and get in trouble for it, right into Luca's smug face.

"I'd be careful about chit-chatting on duty," the other lifeguard said with a patronizing look. "You wouldn't want me to tell the boss, would you?"

Cam lifted an eyebrow with a fake-amused smirk.

"Are you four years old? It's children who are supposed to snitch on others."

Luca clenched his fist at seeing his threat bounce off with no results.

"Mind your tongue, Mitchell. The clubhouse toilets still need cleaning, remember?"

Cam tried to remain impassive, but that one threat had too much of an effect for him to verbally reply. He'd had to clean those toilets once, and no amount of brain bleach had been able to remove the memory of them from his mind. Luca smirked at realizing how affected Cam had been.

"Now get lost," Luca demanded. "We wouldn't want to leave beach attendants in your clumsy hands any longer."

Not bothering to reply, Cam climbed his lifeguard chair, put his stuff in his pocket, and then jumped down to walk off with Carly toward where she had her beach stuff.

"That guy's awful," Carly said, her fingers sunk into the towel. "Mick should just throw him out with a kick to the rump."

She'd get no argument from Cam there. How he and Gabe had managed to hold onto a job like lifeguarding when they were such jerks, Cam would never know. But they had more important things to talk about than Luca or Gabe, and Cam wanted to return to them.

"Back to the previous subject, you said for him to know about me someone must have told him. That made me think…"

"That's dangerous," Carly cut in with an amused grin.

Cam chuckled at the remark, but otherwise carried on as if he hadn't been interrupted, "…and I've come to one conclusion: maybe he knows Erik and Erik told him about us."

Carly let out a tired sigh.

"And here I thought we had seen the last of him."

Cam wasn't glad at the idea either. Especially when he had felt for himself how unbalanced Erik could get when he didn't get his way. If Gunnar knew about him and was here because he was connected to Erik, then he was bound to be some lackey of his. And any fish boys Erik managed to recruit into his cause were bound to be cut from the same cloth – or scales from the same fish, to use a maritime version of it.

But was Erik really the kind of guy... well, merguy, who would get henchmen? Sure, he'd accused Zac of selling out mermen by not starting the chamber, but for all Cam knew, he actually wanted the power for himself. That kind of guy wouldn't get henchmen, especially mermen with whom he'd have to share the power.

Maybe Cam ought to get a second opinion.

"You think he's calling for reinforcements?" Cam suggested. "Maybe trying to get his revenge or something, with Gunnar being a scout of sorts?"

Carly pursed her lips and creased her forehead in thought.

"That sounds a bit too much, even for him," she eventually replied. "He might have been a misguided moron, but I don't think he actually meant to kill anyone. And if this Gunnar is a scout, he doesn't sound like the most competent one."

Cam looked away at the sea. Carly did have a few points. Erik didn't seem like he had wanted to kill anyone. Sure, he had ignored plenty of signs that the merman chamber was dangerous, but even Cam didn't think he had actually wanted to murder the mermaids. But the most obvious way for Gunnar to know about him was if Erik had told him, and to whom would Erik tell such details if not to a henchman who was part of a plan to get revenge?

Cam looked back at Carly and suggested. "Maybe he went off the deep end in the more metaphorical sense as well as the literal one. And maybe he's desperate enough to take anything he can get when it comes to lackeys."

Carly shivered at Cam's words.

"Maybe," she conceded in a scared tone that made Cam wince.

Why did his tendency to put his foot in his mouth have to strike at this time?

In an effort to appease Carly, he reached over and held her hand reassuringly.

"Don't worry," he soothed. "Zac, Evie and the others can deal with Erik and any goons he throws at them. And once we tell them about this, they'll be on their guard."

Carly smiled slightly at the thought and squeezed his hand in return. But even though he had managed to calm her down, Cam made it a point not to bring up Gunnar or Erik or anything else related to mermen until they were at the café telling their suspicions to whatever merpeople were there.

* * *

 _L'eau coule encore. Elle a changé pourtant._

 _Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment,_

 _Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie._

As Alana elongated the last note of Jean-Paul-Égide Martini's _Plaisir d'amour_ , she strummed her guitar's chords one last time, to set her voice to the sound.

When she fell silent, the around fifteen people gathered around her, her instruments, and her foldable stool, clapped loudly with pleased looks or congratulatory smiles. Happy to have done a good job, Alana smiled to thank for the applause and bowed as well as she could when she was sitting on a foldable stood and had a guitar on her lap. She wasn't sure she agreed entirely with the song's lyrics, but in spite of that, she did feel for the 'song's protagonist' for lack of a better designation, and thus could easily get into the music. Also, the melody was beautiful. If she didn't prefer writing her own songs in their entirety, from melody to lyrics, she'd probably write words to set to that tune.

Once the applause ended, Alana stood up from her stool, picked up the blue cap that always rested at her feet when she performed, and walked out toward the crowd, her guitar clutched in her other hand. As usually, most of the people gave her something, ranging from the low tens of cents to a whole dollar. It wasn't much, but this wasn't her first performance of the day, and she still had the twenty dollar bill Gunnar had given her, saved up for a rainy day.

Once she went through the whole audience, she slipped the coins into her denim short shorts' pocket and put the cap back on her head. Most of the crowd started dispersing, but a few – a slim dark-skinned boy who seemed to be a few years younger than her and a heavy-set man in his sixties with a white sailor's beard and a brown-haired little boy who looked at her eagerly from beside him – stayed behind, apparently wanting a repeat performance.

Alana gave them an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, but I have to take a break." The dark-skinned teen looked disappointed, and the little boy pouted from beside his supposed grandfather. "Thank you for listening."

The teen turned around and walked away, while the old man gently took the little boy away by the hand. Sorry that she had nothing but apologies to give, Alana turned around and walked to the guitar bag she had put against the wall a few meters behind the stool, to the right of the marine park's entrance. It was a great spot to play at. Here she typically had a small audience, and most of them tended to give her coins after each performance. She had no idea of how long the marine park's staff would let her get away with it, but she intended to earn all the money she could while they allowed her to play here.

That probably also meant she should save a bit more, but as for now she was earning enough money for three meals a day with some to spare, not to mention that she had no extra expense to pay, she figured it was better to invest in her health. It wouldn't do if she was so hungry that she couldn't play or sing properly.

Her guitar put away, Alana slung her bag over her shoulders, walked to her stool, and folded it so she could tuck it under her arm. But as she started to walk away, her steps halted at the sight of a familiar person standing only about half a metre from her.

"Hi, Alana," Gunnar said, his hands in his shorts' pockets.

Alana couldn't reply, too surprised at the fact he was in front of her for the second time in two days. What was he doing here? She didn't think this was the kind of place someone like him would be at so often.

Alana tried to smile at him, but her cheeks seemed too stiff for that. All she managed was to turn the corners of her mouth a tad upwards. But at least, Gunnar didn't flinch or grimace.

"Hi," she eventually said. "Fancy seeing you here again."

She did her best to say so in a polite tone, but the words still sounded wrong. These days, that was the kind of thing one said when they meant to be sarcastic.

"I guess I could say the same," Gunnar replied, before he stiffened as if concealing a wince.

Alana gave a brief shrug.

"This place is good to play at," she explained. "Don't worry, I didn't spend the twenty dollars you gave me already. I'm just trying not to rely only on them."

Gunnar just raised his right hand out of his pocket and waved the apology away with a smile. This time, Alana smiled back a bit more naturally, but at the same time, wariness reared up within her. It sounded a bit odd that Gunnar would be by the marine park two days in a row – supposedly he was a bit too old to want to go there every day.

"Why are you here, though?" Maybe it was a bit blunt of her, but Alana was terrible at subtlety, and she'd never had friends her own age before Evie, so she had no idea of how to behave.

Gunnar tried to smirk in a way that apparently was meant to be conceited, but the way his eyes turned down conveyed it as strangely timid.

"Would you take it too badly if I told you it was because I was hoping to see you?" he asked, his low voice adding to the timid aspect.

Alana's face became redderthan her hair. She clutched the guitar bag's straps in her hand and tried to look everywhere but at him, each of her attempts somehow ending with her looking at him. Even though her very existence qualified as being completely out there for the rest of the world, Alana found that a boy confessing he was hoping to see her was as outlandish as an alien landing in someone's backyard.

Back in Lahinch, she had been quite a loner from a young age, as her mother had home-schooled her until she was old enough to truly understand the importance of keeping her tail a secret. By the time she started going to school, she'd been too socially awkward to truly fit in, and didn't become more than acquaintance to anyone. Then her mother had gotten sick, and Alana had dropped out of school to take care of her. While presumably the foster system or any foster family she got would eventually send her to some school, that hadn't happened yet, and interactions at the group home had been even worse than the ones at her old school. Since her mother's death, Gunnar was the second person – the first being Evie – who actually wanted to see her again.

"I don't know," she finally managed to utter. "I'm not very used to people wanting to see me…"

With a reassuring look, Gunnar told her, "Well, that's not why I'm here." Then his eyes widened in alarm, and he stammered, "I mean, not that it's bad to see you, it's just that I didn't come here looking for you, but I'm rather glad to see you again, but I understand if you…"

His explanations trailed off as Alana burst in chuckles. For whatever reason, his awkwardness had just melted away whatever unease she felt about him.

"I get the point," she reassured, her face back to its normal paleness. And though she wouldn't tell him that, she was rather flattered he was 'rather glad' to see her again. She also was rather glad to see him – as much as she could when they had only met one another for a day and exchanged about a dozen of lines.

With a sigh of relief, presumably from the fact she wasn't sneering at him for tripping over his words, Gunnar explained, "Either way, I'm here because I work here. Or rather, there." He gestured toward the marine park's door as a means of clarification.

Alana raised an eyebrow. She had seen the uniforms of the marine park's workers while she played here. Gunnar's definitely wasn't one, and he didn't seem like he could be one of the people in charge. "Shouldn't you be in uniform then?"

"The marine park has changing rooms, and I prefer to not wear my uniform outside of my work place," Gunnar explained. "But I can show you my card if you want me to."

Before Alana could tell him whether she wanted him to or not, he fished a card identifying him as a marine park worker out of his short's left pocket, and showed it to her for a long period before he tucked it back inside again. Maybe she was being a bit naïve, but Alana was convinced. He seemed to have explained without hesitating, and the card he'd shown looked genuine.

"Are you on your lunchbreak then?" Alana asked.

Gunnar nodded. "For the next ten minutes. Then I have a guided tour to conduct."

Although he seemed to be telling the truth, Alana raised an eyebrow again. He couldn't be more than twenty, and if she had to guess, she'd say he was actually a bit younger. "Aren't you a big young to be a tour guide?"

"I'm knowledgeable about the sea," Gunnar replied automatically, as if he'd had to answer the same question plenty of times before.

Alana had no comments on that. From an absolute point of view, he probably knew less about the sea than she did, but she was also someone who could learn more about the sea than the average person. As far as she knew, Gunnar could actually be knowledgeable about the sea for a human.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Again, Gunnar smiled and waved the words away. Then, before either of them could speak, her stomach made its emptiness known again with another growl.

Again red as a tomato, Alana replied, "And I'm also someone who needs to eat. So if you'll excuse me…"

Gunnar blinked as if he'd just come out of a trance. "Yes. Yes, of course."

Alana stepped to the right so she could walk around him. Right on cue, Gunnar stepped to the left, presumably to let her pass, and got in her way. Alana tried stepping to the left to walk around him, but this time he stepped to the right. He again looking like he had only meant to let her pass, but they weren't getting anywhere like this.

"Sorry," Gunnar muttered.

Alana smiled briefly as she tried to think whether this time she could go left or right, and what was the best way to do it without Gunnar getting in her way.

"Let's make it this way," Gunnar suggested, "You stay put, I move aside, and then you can pass."

Alana nodded, rigid as a statue from the neck below. Then Gunnar stepped aside.

Her body loosening up in relief, Alana resumed her walk away from the marine park.

"Until next time!" Gunnar told her.

Alana turned around to look at him. In spite of what she really wanted to say, the glint of hope in his eyes caused her to say instead, "Yes. Until next time."

But as she resumed her walk, Alana decided that it would be better for everyone if there wasn't a next time. Granted, Gunnar was nice – as far as she could tell, at least – and he was kind of cute as well, but he was a human. For any relationship between them to work, she would have to tell him she was a mermaid at some point, and she couldn't even begin to conceive doing so. She had learned from a young age never to tell anyone about her tail, and she had never broken that rule in all of her sixteen years. And it seemed a weird beginning for a relationship: to meet because he had given her alms. It was better to end it before it even began.

Unfortunately, that meant she would have to play somewhere else, most likely at a spot where she wouldn't have a constant audience, or where she wouldn't get so much money.

But it would be better for her emotionally, and for Gunnar as well, once he stopped thinking about her. After lunch, she'd try to find some spot that fit at least some of her criteria – and hopefully stop thinking about Gunnar.

Alana sighed at the thought, her heart squeezing into itself. It seemed that without her mother, she was doomed to never have anyone to turn to.

Doctor Thomas and his family had been nice to her beyond her wildest dreams, but she could never be with any of them without thinking of some episode related to her mother's illness: the time Mrs. Thomas and Praveer took her to the zoo to distract her on a day her mother was particularly weak, the time Neelam had held her while she cried after her mother's passing, the time Doctor Thomas went with her to the funeral agency to organize the funeral…

Alana shook her head to clear those thoughts. It wasn't Doctor Thomas' fault she couldn't make positive associations to him or his family in spite of how nice they had all been to her. And with all the patient deaths he must have dealt with in his career, he and his family likely had already forgotten her anyway.

As for Gunnar, he probably wouldn't think about her for that long either. A guy like him probably had more than enough girls after him to be able to pick a better one anyway. Someone prettier, normal, and less messed up, less likely to cling to him because she had lost everyone else in her life and would be too afraid of losing him too, in the off chance she ever brought forth the honesty required for a real relationship.

 _And Evie?_ An inner voice pointed out.

 _Shut it!_ Alana inwardly commanded, an effort that must have shown itself on her face, judging from how several passers-by gave her odd looks.

Beet-red again, Alana pulled her cap farther down her head and walked at a brisker pace, hoping to pass by everyone too fast for them to notice her blush. Of all the relationships she'd had a chance to establish since her mother's death, the one with Evie was the worst, precisely because it also was the best. In the single day they had spent together, Alana had connected with Evie in a way she had never thought possible. Evie had understood her, had been kind to her, and had done her best to help her, and the day she had spent with her had been the only one since her mother's death she would qualify as anything near 'good'. In a sense, Evie was like the big sister Alana had never had, and she would love nothing more than to have already accepted her invitation to go to her workplace and spend more time with her.

But Evie was a mermaid who for some reason, in spite of being a land girl who fell into a moon pool, hung around with a pod of born mermaids who would rip Alana apart the moment they knew of her heritage. Why they had allowed Evie to live, much less join their pod, Alana didn't know, but maybe it was because, although she had been a land girl, they still viewed her as a more natural mermaid that Alana knew they would view her.

 _The irony._ Alana thought. _I'm the one who's the born mermaid, and she's the one they view as more natural._

There was nothing she could do about that, though. Only stay away. If Evie learned about what she was, she either would shun her or try to protect her from the pod's wrath, which could lead to her being killed as well. The first scenario made her quake; the second made her heart rip itself in half. She couldn't risk either.

It was better for her to simply accept she was alone in the world. As much as the idea pained her.

* * *

Gunnar watched Alana go until she vanished in the distance and the crowd, again finding himself feeling for her. She looked less tired than he remembered her looking the day before, but she still looked exhausted. He found himself relieved that she didn't look undernourished yet; she must be making enough money from singing on the street in addition to the twenty dollars he'd given her. No surprise there. He'd watched her performance of _Plaisir d'amour_ , and it had been one of the loveliest renditions of the song he had ever heard. If some record label actually listened to her, he would bet quite some money that they would want to hire her. Then she wouldn't have to count every penny that her audience tossed into her cap.

 _She must have some story._ Gunnar thought. _What a pity I'll never be able to ask her about it._

Gunnar had no idea why he was so curious, or why felt for her like that. After all, she was his kind's biggest enemy. He was supposed to be scared of her, not be worried about her or wish she could help her.

But maybe it made some sense. After all, she was technically a female of his species, and the first one he'd interacted with on friendly terms. If animals and humans as a rule felt drawn to members of the opposite sex they found attractive, it was logical that merpeople like him would also. Granted, physical attraction was never enough for a real relationship, at least among land people - and according to rare reports of relatinships between mermen and mermaids, the rule also applied to merpeole - but maybe things between him and Alana could go somewhere if they got to know each other better.

Gunnar clenched his teeth to muffle those thoughts. He hadn't moved to the Gold Coast to get into a relationship with a mermaid. He had done it to teach a lesson to what now seemed bound to be a whole pod of them, not to mention their human allies.

It was a really long shot, and Gunnar was all too aware that, when all was said and done, he would end up retreating in shame at best, or gutted like a fish at worst. He might have some plans for revenge in mind, but not a single one of them looked like it had any real chance of leading to anything but to him ending up in a very tight spot.

But at the end of the day, Gunnar knew he had to try.

After all, he owed it to Erik.

* * *

 **So, there went another chapter. Again, no fancasting, but it should return next chapter.**

 **I'm not sure of how much of what was told about Gunnar came across as a surprise and how much was already guessed. All the same, I hope you've enjoyed the chapter.**


	10. Chapter 10: News All Around

**Well, here is one more chapter. And once again, it is the longest chapter in this story so far. Most chapters have gotten away from me in terms of size, but I really hope that none of them gets as far away from me as this one did.**

 **As a way of 'kind of' making up for it, this chapter brings up a connection between H2O And Mako Mermaids, by 'establishing' a crossover character. I'm hardly the first coming up with this particular idea (the official wikia mentions it) but I like it enough that I decided to use it.**

 **As always, I hope you enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

 **Chapter 10 – News All Around**

On most days, Ondina loved having lunch at the _Ocean Café_. The seafood they served was delicious, the juices were just as good, the owner was someone they could trust to keep their secret, and the place was close enough to the water that if there was an accident and they got splashed, they could dive in before their tails manifested themselves.

But today, as Ondina saw Carly and Cam approaching the outside table that she, Mimmi, Zac, and Sirena were sitting at, sharing a big plate full of prawns, she felt her whole body tensing up and her heart filling itself with icy wariness. Both of them looked as serious as if they had seen a drowned sailor's corpse returning to life; Cam, in particular, looked as grave as she only had seen him once, back on the day he delivered the trident stone to them so he wouldn't succumb to the temptation of starting up the chamber so he could get a tail. Ondina knew without having to ask that they had some kind of bad news for them.

After Carly went to get Evie from her clothes shop, and the two of them joined Cam sitting at the café's table – which led to a rather tight fit of seven people around the same table – she and Cam immediately shared the news they had. At first, after they told her about Cam's encounter with Gunnar and showed them the picture Cam had taken – which indeed confirmed it was the same Gunnar that Doctor Ross had hired – Ondina couldn't help a triumphant smile at the confirmation that her theory had been right and Gunnar was, like she had suspected, a merman. But the next minute, when Cam told her about his other suspicions regarding Gunnar, every bit of her triumph was quashed by mind-numbing shock, broken only by the bits of all the prawns she had eaten crawling around in her stomach as if they wanted to come back out.

She only had a vague memory of the following moments, during which her mind seemed to be filled with thousands of voices shouting 'It can't be!' and the same strange itch on the insides of her stomach. She only returned to reality when Mimmi screamed at her right in her face. Then, her voice low and numb, she uttered, staring at Cam and Carly, "You two mean to tell me that this Gunnar guy is here because he's working for Erik? And that Erik sent him here to scare us as part of some twisted plot of his to get revenge?"

Cam took a few seconds to reply, apparently puzzled at her words.

"Well, you might be reaching a bit on some parts, but basically, yes. He knew who I am, you said he also seemed to know who and what you are, and I don't think he could have learned either unless someone told him. The only someone I can think of who would tell him that is Erik, and I don't see why Gunnar would be here unless he was performing some kind of task for him."

Ondina gasped, feeling as if she a killer whale had just rammed her in the gut. She already knew Erik was not who she thought he was, but for him to actually have roped a merman into working for him because he was vengeful over not having gotten to control the merman chamber…

The memory of the day she had last seen him returned to her. She remembered as if it were yesterday; she had told him she couldn't start over with him because she would always be afraid he would choose something else over her. Now, if what Cam was saying was true, it seemed that she hadn't even been a true choice in the first place – just an accessory, an extra prize.

No. That couldn't be. She couldn't have meant so little to him. And he sounded regretful. Even if she had turned him down, at least he had seemed to be sorry.

 _Then why is he sending lackeys after all of you?_ A voice mocked from inside her. _And why didn't that lackey get any sort of instructions on not treating you badly to begin with?_

Ondina fought back the urge to drop her head on the table and sigh from the pain. She felt like a toy Erik had played with just because he found it nice only to discard it when it got broken. And it didn't help that the dead prawns on the plate seemed to be giving her condescending looks, as if silently saying 'I told you so.'.

"So… what do we do now?" Sirena asked.

Ondina barely heard the question. She couldn't have answered it anyway. She had no idea even of how to feel, much less on what to do. The only positive thing she could say was that the food in her stomach appeared to have settled down at last.

"Well, for what it's worth, we'll be glad to help, but I think we've already covered all we could," Cam pointed out. "You five are the ones who actually pack enough of a punch to do anything effective to Gunnar."

"We could tell him a few choice words for him to pass on to Erik," Mimmi suggested, her face much icier than it was usual for her. "I have more than a few ready."

Ondina's anger flared up. That was a plan of action she could get behind. And she already had choice words of her own coming to her.

"That wouldn't solve anything," Sirena said. "We need to think of something that actually drives Gunnar off."

There were a few seconds of silence as all of them tried to think of a plan.

"You could tell your pod to catch him in the water and mob him until he leaves," Carly suggested. "Even if he's working with Erik, there are only two of them – three if for some reason that other merman Nixie and Lyla mentioned seeing also is working with them. Your pod has about one hundred and fifty mermaids, hasn't it?" After a glance, she added, "And a merman, of course. You should be able to handle three mermen."

Zac frowned at the suggestion.

"I don't think I could deal with being so aggressive to my own kind," he said. "Even if Erik and Gunnar are bastards, we can't start painting all mermen as such. And besides, for all we know, the pod wouldn't stick to mobbing them and would actually kill them. I don't think slaughter is the best first choice."

Ondina's temper flared up again. "What do you suggest then?"

She regretted the words the second they came out. Of course it was understandable of Zac to not be willing to resort to murder as a first choice. She also didn't think she could handle killing two mermaids in cold blood just like that. But Erik had already proved that works didn't work with him, and it seemed likely anyone he got to work with him was similar.

"We could try to talk to him," Zac suggested. "After all, we already know he is a merman, so it's not as if we have to worry about him exposing us. If he did, he'd face consequences as well."

Ondina, Mimmi, and Sirena all frowned at Zac's suggestion.

"Gunnar doesn't look like the kind of guy who would be very open to dialogue," Mimmi said. "And if he really is working for Erik, he either is under some spell that prevents him from making decisions on his own or whatever Erik promised him pays off much more than anything we have to offer him."

"Maybe not," Evie put in.

At last she made it a point to come to the living world! For most of their conversation, she seemed more worried about looking at the arriving customers than to listening to the conversation about Gunnar, not to mention that she would perk up occasionally as if she had seen someone she was looking for, only to deflate the next moment upon finding out it was someone else.

"You said that Gunnar might be working for Erik," Evie told Cam. "But if that's true, then it seems that Erik either hasn't been keeping him up to date or is outright lying to him. For one, he seemed to think that you two…" she looked both at Cam and at Zac. "…were still on the outs and that you…" she focused on Cam. "…are still interested in getting a tail. One of those is definitely false, and as for the second…" she initiaaly trailed off to allow Cam to fill in the blank himself, but then finished her own sentence before he could. "… it ultimately doesn't really matter whether it's true or not, because we already know the first isn't. If Erik has lied to Gunnar about that, who knows what else he may have lied about to him."

Ondina could see what Evie was getting to, but Sirena beat her to saying so.

"So you're saying that if we can learn what exactly Gunnar knows about us and start poking holes in whatever Erik told him, we may actually convert him to our side?"

Evie nodded.

"It could work," Zac said in a rather pleased tone.

Ondina and all the other born mermaids turned look of disbelief at him; Evie, Cam, and Carly didn't.

"Seriously, half of the messes all of us got in could have been avoided if we all had been more communicative with one another, particularly in the early days." Zac went on. "It really seems possible that all we need to sort out this mess is to talk to this Gunnar guy."

Ondina did have to admit it was a logical idea, but that didn't mean she liked it. The idea of interacting with any merman after what Erik had done to her made her stomach churn. For now and for the rest of her life, she figured any merman that wasn't Zac would never get her sympathies.

"Or we could also talk to Erik directly," Evie piped in.

Her second idea was met with baffled looks from everyone.

"How could we do that?" Ondina asked. "We don't know where he is."

"Dad has a few contacts in the foster system," Evie explained. "Erik's our age, so he should still be in the system. If he hasn't faked his death and left land to live in the sea, or done something with similar results, it shouldn't be that difficult to track him down. And now that Dad knows about us, there's no reason not to ask him for help."

That idea also seemed logical, but again, Ondina frowned at it. She didn't know Mr. McLaren that well, and although she trusted Evie enough to believe her when she said her father would keep their secret, this was still a mermaid matter. They should try to sort this out without involving land people.

"Isn't that confidential information?" Carly asked.

Evie shrugged and replied, "I don't think it's confidential enough for Dad not to be able to get it. He just needs to not say that it's because we're worried that the power-hungry merman I told him about is now making a deliberate attempt to hurt us."

"Then see if he can help us," Mimmi said, her voice hard and her features lined with seriousness Ondina rarely saw. "If Erik is the kind of merman with enough power to send spies and goons after us, we need to find out where he is and stop him before it's too late."

Evie nodded, and then gave another look around, again as if she was searching for someone else. This time, Ondina noticed, she merely looked back at them with hints of disappointment in her posture, as if she hadn't found the one she was looking for.

Ondina also noticed that Sirena visibly shivered at Mimmi's words. She couldn't blame her. The last time a pod of mermen had gathered, they had almost destroyed countless mermaids with that trident. And who knew what they would have done if Zac's ancestor had decided to activate the merman chamber. Now neither the trident nor the chamber were an issue, but mermen still had magic and were still more powerful than mermaids as a rule, and if enough of them gathered, they could still do a lot of damage if they wanted to and were given a chance. So the pod couldn't give them that chance.

Then, something Ondina hadn't been considering before popped into her mind as she thought of the pod.

"We'll have to talk to Veridia first," Ondina said. "If Gunnar and Erik are as dangerous as they appear to be, the pod needs to know about them."

The whole group frowned at the words, except for Cam and Carly, who had never met Veridia or the pod. Ondina knew all those who had met both were thinking about the same thing – how the pod, and the mermaid council in particular, would react at learning such news.

"And does Veridia already know about Gunnar?" Evie asked. "And the other merman Nixie and Lyla saw for that matter?"

Mimmi shook her head negatively and replied, "We already asked Rita to tell her, but Rita said she isn't too sure of how to break the news."

"After today, she'd better find a way," Ondina almost snapped.

She again winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but unlike with most of her outbursts, this time she was only met with sympathetic glances. The information about Gunnar had everyone on edge.

"Let's just hope Nixie was right when she said yesterday that the pod will be more willing to stay and fight without the trident and the merman chamber," Mimmi added.

"Good luck there," Cam remarked. "If a single fish boy who ultimately didn't mean any harm made the whole pod leave Mako, I shudder to think of what reaction three or more of them with confessed evil intentions would cause."

Ondina glared at Cam for the comment, while everyone else scowled. He wasn't telling them anything new; there was no reason for him to just make them more nervous. Cam lowered his eyes as he realized his mistake.

"I guess I'll just go and get something to eat," he said as he gestured to the café's door. "I tend to run my mouth even more than usual when I'm on an empty stomach."

He raised his hand slightly toward them in goodbye and then turned around to walk into the café.

"I'll go too," Carly said. "Good luck."

Ondina gave Carly a rueful smile. They sure would need good luck, and plenty at that, to deal with this particular problem.

As Carly followed Cam into the café, Zac added, "And I guess I'll tell Rita about Gunnar." He paused and picked up another prawn off of the plate. "After I'm done with a few more prawns, that is."

The twinkle in his eyes and his grin before he started munching on the prawn told them all he was deliberately trying to inject humour into the situation. Although the effort was far from supreme, Evie playfully bumped her shoulder with his', and Mimmi and Sirena both chuckled for an instant, but Ondina couldn't manage more than an eye roll. The idea of Erik now actively trying to hurt them had gotten under her scales too much.

Then, Evie's amused expression vanished in an instant as her eyes locked on something to her right and Ondina's left. After spending a moment rigid as a statue, her posture loosened again, a disappointed look on her face. Ondina glanced to the left, and saw a pale land girl with red hair heading toward the café's door. Apparently, like she had thought earlier, Evie was indeed looking for someone, and seemed to be getting a bit anxious to find said someone.

"Who are you looking for?" Ondina asked, her curiosity finally getting the better of her.

Evie shook as if she had been suddenly awakened.

"For Alana," she replied.

At first, Ondina frowned in puzzlement – she didn't remember hearing anything about this Alana she had never even met being supposed to show up at the café – but then she recalled the invitation that she had heard Evie had extended to the mermaid. Apparently she was still hoping that Alana would show up.

Mimmi smiled reassuringly.

"The day's not over yet," the Canadian mermaid appeased. "She still may show up."

Evie sighed at the words, a worried look on her face. Then she managed to muster a small resigned smile.

"Well, if she doesn't, at least I already know where to find her."

"When are you going to see her if she doesn't show up?" Ondina asked.

Evie hesitated for a few seconds before she replied. "Tomorrow, after we're done waiting for Chris."

Ondina fought back a scowl. Mimmi's idea of waiting for Chris at that airport had probably been one of the worst ideas she'd ever had. She might have never met this Chris, but she knew Mimmi, and she saw how her best friend smiled at the thought of seeing him soon, how much she looked forward to the conversations they had on that laptop thingy, and how she wanted to keep their relationship once Chris came back.

It reminded Ondina far too much of her own relationship with Erik. He might have never been abroad for an extended period, but Ondina could see echoes of what she had felt for him in Mimmi's behaviour when something related to Chris came up. And whenever she did, she couldn't fight off her fear that something comparable to what had happened between her and Erik would happen between Mimmi and Chris. If not something worse. At least Erik had been a merman who couldn't have revealed the secret. Chris was a land boy on whom they would have to rely to keep the secret if Mimmi ever decided to tell him.

But she didn't make any comments on that. She had already given Mimmi every possible warning about Chris, and Mimmi always said that she knew what she was doing and would accept responsibility for whatever happened.

So instead, Ondina returned to the topic of Alana.

"Why are you thinking so much about her? You've only seen her once. I get being worried about her, but why that much?"

Evie let out another sigh. Ondina could tell from the get-go that whatever the reason she thought about Alana so much, it came from the bottom of her heart.

"I'm just concerned for her. She lost her mother, she doesn't have any other family, and she's a mermaid alone in the human world," Evie said.

When things were laid out like that, Ondina could understand Evie's feelings a lot better, even if she couldn't actually imagine all of them. She had also lost her mother, but she'd never had to deal with keeping her tail a secret from land people while she was mourning her, and she had been quickly taken in by the pod after it happened. She couldn't imagine where she would be in Alana's situation, even if this mermaid was a lot older than Ondina had been when she lost her mother.

"I know we only spent one day together, but it seems we've known each other for a lot longer. I can't really explain how, but we just… we just connected. In a sense, she's like the little sister I never had," Evie again looked right, the way her eyes seemed to focus on a certain point suggesting she was looking at a specific direction. "I would just like to know if she's alright."

Having already finished chewing his prawn, Zac wiped his mouth, put his right arm around Evie's shoulders, and kissed her left temple. Again, Ondina could sympathize, to a degree at least. She also had grown fond of Neppy unexpectedly fast, and considered her a little sister of sorts. Even if the age difference between Evie and Alana seemed to be smaller, it could still happen.

"I'm sure she's alright," Ondina reassured. "And I'm also sure she'll love seeing you tomorrow."

Evie smiled gratefully, and then started giggling as Zac, in what appeared to be a deliberate effort to keep her from worrying about Alana, picked up another prawn off of the dish and pointed it at her while saying silly words about how tasty it was, which caused Evie to burst into a fit of giggles and the three born mermaids at the table to make jokes about them going home.

* * *

Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, Sedna used her super speed to the fullest extent she possibly could, doing her utter best to keep up with Hydrurga on the very long swim from Grim Island to the waters close to Mako Island.

It was a gruelling task – besides being faster, Hydrurga was not sympathetic to the fact Sedna swam more slowly than her. She seemed to be restraining herself a bit, in that at least Sedna hadn't lost her yet, but on the few times they had been close enough to one another for Sedna to see Hydrurga's expression, she could tell that the other mermaid was not satisfied with Sedna's performance.

As always.

Sedna figured she should be happier. After all, the spells they had put on the land boy had worked well enough for them to see that he was already inside one of those giant metal cylinders land people used to fly through the air, and for them to confirm that, even at a distance, they could force him to do or say whatever they wanted him to, as long as they focused on the task. Granted, it would be some time before they could use those spells to their fullest potential, as for some reason the land boy had to be at least tolerated by the Mako Pod before they could use him in their plan, but at least things were going well.

Granted, things could be going better, Sedna acknowledged as she and Hydrurga made a sharp turn downwards to avoid a pod of dolphins. It would be much better if Nerissa's son was not – what were the words? – romantically involved with that land girl who had become a mermaid, or at least if said land girl hadn't become a mermaid before Sedna and Hydrurga managed to get their hands on her?

 _Really?_ Sedna told herself. _Given that by all accounts, Nerissa's son couldn't have deactivated the chamber without the land girl turned mermaid to help him get there, not to mention she couldn't have gotten there on time if she wasn't a mermaid, it was probably better that way._

Sedna shuddered at the thought. If that merman chamber ever had been fully activated, it would have been the end of every mermaid in the world. So yes, it had been better for the land girl to be a mermaid after all.

It did inconvenience them now, as the fact she was already a mermaid meant they couldn't enchant her like they wanted to, but they already had a plan on how to circumvent that point. It wasn't as foolproof as if they could just seize the current paramour of Nerissa's son and enchant her, and it would take a bit longer, but they did have some time to wait until they could make proper use of the land boy Nerissa's daughter fancied. Until then, they could try to make sure Nerissa's son would start fancying someone else.

And even if he didn't, it wouldn't take much to make the Mako Island Pod grow mistrustful of him again. After all, he was a merman.

Sedna briefly smiled at the thought.

Then her smile was replaced by eyes wide with alarm as she realized Hydrurga was right beside her, giving her a furious look. She must have slowed down too much while she was absorbed in her thoughts.

Not wanting to get anything worse than a glare, Sedna sped up as much as she could, hoping she could make it to their destination without Hydrurga dishing out any physical punishments along the way.

* * *

Like Zac promised, he went to talk to Rita as soon as he was done with his share of the prawns, and told her of their new discoveries and suspicions regarding Gunnar. By the end of the conversation, Rita was doing a rather poor job of repressing very clear fear, but she also seemed determined to handle the situation, and promised to apprise Veridia of the facts after Zac renewed the request for her to do so. She didn't seem all that thrilled at the idea, but Zac figured that was hard. Although he and Veridia now got along, she still wasn't his favourite person – or merperson – to be around. So he apologized for having to be the bearer of bad news, thanked her for doing them a favour, and then went to his bungalow to think about the best way to have a conversation with Gunnar.

Unfortunately, he couldn't make any concrete plans, as he'd never even seen the guy, the information he'd gotten about him left very little idea of what he was like as a person, and Rita had advised him to wait for word from the pod before doing anything, so that their attempts to handle the problem wouldn't crisscross and get in the way of one another. In the end, it came down to the same basic principle he had decided on the café: the best way to handle the issue would be to poke holes in whatever Erik had told him. And in the meantime, to hope that Gunnar wasn't actually under any sort of spell that forced him to obey Erik no matter what, because not only would it make that issue impossible to handle, but it would mean they could have a truly big problem on their hands.

In the end, after several hours without his work bearing any actual fruit, he went to meet Evie at the café, both to walk her home and to learn if she had been any luckier than him regarding her main concern.

It turned out she hadn't been.

In spite of Mimmi's reassurance at lunchtime about how the day wasn't over yet, the rest of it still had gone through without Alana showing up at the café. Evie had said it was understandable, because after all they had still been basically strangers even after their day together, but she was still worried about her.

However, unlike yesterday, she now could take reassurance in the fact that she knew where Alana was. As a result of that, a good chunk of their walk to Evie's home consisted of planning their visitation to Alana on the following day. Zac still intended to go with Evie, but at the same time he couldn't help but be a tad apprehensive at the idea. It had been a long time since he had interacted with a mermaid who was wary of mermen, and Alana sounded like she could be frail enough already without him needing to upset her further. While Evie kept reassuring him that Alana wouldn't mind he was a merman once she got to know him, she also kept being worried about the possibility of that happening, so they both agreed it would be better not to tell her about that until they were sure of what she thought of mermen. Ideally, Zac knew he shouldn't go at all if they had so many doubts, but he was curious to meet Alana himself, and he worried that it would be difficult for Evie to give the Irish mermaid support on her own. While the wounds she'd gotten from the time her mother was sick hadn't left anything worse than a few scars, Zac was concerned that prolonged interactions with Alana might stir them up. He'd rather be there for Evie until he was sure that wasn't the case.

Besides Alana, they also ended up talking of other things, such as Evie's day at the café, Zac's ideas on the best way to talk to Gunnar, and what kind of measures the pod might decide to adopt to deal with this new threat.

And once they approached Evie's house, they started talking about a very unusual sight they found there.

"Who are those three?" Evie asked, her eyes locked on the three people standing with her father on her house's back porch.

Zac narrowed his eyes to focus his look on them, in an effort to figure out who they were.

"I have no idea," he replied. "But as far as I can tell, it looks like they're all women, and quite young ones at that."

Evie frowned. "Women? Why would my dad have women at home?"

It was a good question, but Zac didn't have a good answer.

Maybe they wanted to book a dive – but Zac could count on one hand the number of times Mr. McLaren had brought customers home. Maybe they had stopped to ask for directions – but in that case, there should be no reason for them to have stayed long enough for to go to the back porch. And them being Mr. McLaren's dates was pretty far out of the question. He of course had a right to date, but he wasn't the kind who would be dating three women at the same time, and even if that was the case, things wouldn't look so peaceful.

Then Zac's musings were cut short, as Mr. McLaren, who was in the midst of talking to the shortest woman in the trio, noticed them and raised his hand in greeting.

"Well, I guess we're about to find out, seeing as your dad just spotted us."

Evie's frown started to deepen, but then she composed her expression into a neutral one, and the two of them approached her home.

As they got closer, Zac could see that the three women were rather similar in appearance. They were all relatively short – none of them was taller than Evie – and had tanned skin, black hair, and brown eyes. The first, who looked like she was the oldest from the few wrinkles around her eyes, wore a blouse with a flowery pattern, beige trousers, and low-heeled shoes, and had her eyes trained on both of them. The second, a few centimetres taller than the other two, wore a purple top, white short shorts, and flip-flops, and seemed to be looking specifically at him. The third, who had large almond eyes, wore a white sundress with a dark-blue flower pattern and strappy sandals, and had large eyes with a fearful look in them.

"Good evening, kids," Mr. McLaren greeted them as they climbed the steps up to the porch. "You arrived right on time to meet our new neighbours."

Evie's eyes widened, as the word rang a bell in Zac's brain. He had indeed heard that they were meant to have new neighbours several times over the last two weeks or so. He'd been rather curious for a while, but with all that had gone on over the last days – Evie's concern for Alana, the idea of Mimmi meeting Chris at the airport, knowing of a potentially dangerous merman, getting to visit Doctor Thomas, and now the fact that Gunnar seemed to be working for Erik – he had put them out of his mind, and he could tell Evie had done the same.

The oldest-looking woman in the trio – who looked to be around her mid-twenties at the latest – surveyed them both and then turned to Mr. McLaren.

"Are they both yours?" she asked in a very clear American accent.

Mr. McLaren chuckled. "In a way, I guess you could say so."

The woman turned to give Zac a questioning look; he just shrugged bashfully. He had never been mistaken for Evie's brother, but both Mr. McLaren and his parents had been calling them 'kids' for years, as if they were already part of one another's families, even though they had only been actually dating for a year and a few months.

He was saved from answering to that when Mr. McLaren stepped forward and stood between them so that Zac and Evie were to his right and the three women to his left.

"I guess I should be making proper introductions," he said. "This is my daughter Evie, and her boyfriend Zac."

The older woman smiled and said, "I should have known."

Ignoring the comment, Mr. McLaren turned to them and said, "Kids, this is Mrs. Kapule…"

The woman raised her hand and interrupted, "Please, call me Kailani."

"…and her daughters Hali…" Mr. McLaren indicated the one in the purple top and white short shorts. "…and Kopi." he finished as he gestured to the one in the sundress and strappy sandals.

Zac's eyes doubled in size. Daughters? But the three of them looked like sisters! The two younger women shouldn't even be twenty, and Zac wouldn't give the older one thirty. How come she could have daughters that looked as old (or as young) as her? Sure, certain older people could look decades younger, but there were limits!

Mrs. Kapule smiled again, this time knowingly.

"I know," she said. "We get that a lot."

A light shiver crept up Zac's spine. Both the woman's smile and tone seemed genuine, but there was something underlying in her eyes that he didn't like.

Beside him, Evie extended her hand.

"Welcome to the neighbourhood," she greeted with a polite smile. Mrs. Kapule returned it, but her eyes ran over Evie as if she was sizing her up, which caused Evie to frown when she noticed.

Once their handshake ended, Mrs. Kapule turned to Zac, who also shook her hand.

"I hope you enjoy living here," Zac said in the most polite tone he could muster.

"I hope so too," the woman joked with a chuckle, but the reply was belied by the way she ran her eyes up and down him just like she had with Evie.

Only with him, her gaze seemed much more intense and focused. Not in the way girls scrutinized a handsome man in the chick flicks he sometimes watched with Evie, but as if she was assessing a potential threat and trying to determine how to deal with it.

Mrs. Kapule must have realized Zac had noticed, because she pulled her hand from his' and stepped away. Then Hali strolled forward confidently, her hips swaying like a model parading down a carpet. Deliberately ignoring Evie's extended hand, she instead extended her own to Zac and batted her eyelashes at him. A bit at a loss, Zac shook her hand, but only out of manners; he couldn't even bring himself to smile at her. Hali didn't seem to have that problem, as her own smile showed a row of bleached teeth.

"It's wonderful to meet you," she said in the same American accent her mother had.

Zac settled for a nod, unsure of what to say. Mr. McLaren had basically spelled out that he was Evie's boyfriend, and yet she made these moves on him?

He pulled his hand free from hers as quickly as possible, but she squeezed just a tad as if she wanted to let it linger. Beside him, Evie stepped forward and put her arms around him, while he gratefully put one over her shoulders. She made it a point to give Hali a very stern glare, but the girl simply looked at her as if she was a squashed fly she had to wipe off of the bottom of her shoe. Then she turned around, her hair swaying toward Evie as if she wanted to use it to swat her away.

Relieved that Hali was a bit farther from him, Zac looked at Kopi to see if she would also step forward for a handshake, but instead, she raised her arm to wave at them both and didn't utter a word, her eyes still wide and scared as if the two of them were somehow intimidating. Zac raised his arm in return, and Evie did the same, while both of them gave her calming smiles. Neither seemed to have any effect.

 _A woman who looks at me like I'm a potential serial killer, a girl who's treating me like a tasty piece of meat, and another who seems to think we're part of the Haunted Mansion in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom._ Zac assessed. _We certainly got interesting new neighbours._

"I'm sorry," Mrs. Kapule said. "Kopi can be really shy around new people."

Zac waved the apology away and Evie shrugged.

"It's alright," Zac replied.

"We understand," Evie added.

"I'm always telling her to loosen up, but it always goes in through one ear and comes out through the other," Hali added in a tone that must have been meant to be playful, but came across as condescending.

Kopi frowned at her older sister.

"It's the way I am," she murmured, the words clear in spite of the low volume.

Hali looked like she wanted to reply, but Mrs. Kapule cut in before she could do so, "And it is time for us to get going." She turned to Zac and Evie, and added, "It was a pleasure to meet you, but like I told Mr. McLaren here right before you arrived, we really have to get going."

Hali seemed to fight back a scowl at her mother's words, while Kopi didn't even bother to mask the relief flooding her face.

"But mom…" Hali started to say.

"Now, Hali, we can't impose on Mr. McLaren any longer," Mrs. Kapule interrupted. "We already took up quite a lot of his time, we don't need to take Evie's and Zac's as well. Let's get going."

Without even saying goodbye, Kopi scurried down the stairs and started getting away with jerky moves that suggested she was trying not to run. However, after a few steps, she turned around and said, "Goodbye."

Before Zac, Evie, or Mr. McLaren could even wave in return, she went on with a hasty walk. Hali went after her, but as she walked past Zac she made it a point to saunter just a tad closer to him and make deliberate eye contact while giving another smile that was apparently meant to be seductive. Zac instinctively pulled Evie closer to him, and she in turn glared at Hali, but again she acted as if she hadn't seen the gesture and kept walking, still with that slight sway of her hips that suggested she was meant to call attention.

"Have a good evening," Mrs. Kapule told them. "See you tomorrow."

"Likewise, Mrs. Kapule," Mr. McLaren replied.

Then she walked off after her daughters. Unlike either of them, she walked normally, but just a tad faster than it seemed normal, as if she wanted to get away from there but was trying to hold herself back.

Once they were far away, Zac couldn't help a sigh of relief as he removed his arm from Evie's shoulders. Her stance loosened as she also let go of him.

"And that, kids, is another lesson about not going for looks alone," Mr. McLaren proclaimed.

Zac wondered exactly how much of the women's attitude Mr. McLaren had noticed. Hali's advances wouldn't have been ignored by a blind man, but had he also noticed Mrs. Kapule's examination?

"I'm sorry about that," he added. "I was just trying to be a welcoming neighbour, but it looks like at least one of them isn't shy about abusing hospitality."

Zac waved the gesture away with the most tranquilizing look he could. He knew Mr. McLaren hadn't meant any harm.

"Don't worry, dad," Evie told him. "It's not your fault those three moved close by or that they decided to push your welcome."

After a moment of silence, Evie added, "So, how was your day?"

"It was fine," Mr. McLaren replied. "There are a few new customers interested in a repeat trip, so I'll be setting up bookings for them soon."

He could sense Evie's happiness at the idea, and fully understood why. The diving business was entirely dependent on clientele, so it was always good when it decided to return.

"And I also got to talk to Jonas about the girl he asked us to take in," Mr. McLaren added. Evie stood straighter, and even Zac gave him an interested look. "He thanked us both for the help, and tomorrow we'll start getting the last bits of paperwork ready. He said that by his estimations, she should be here next Friday morning."

Zac blinked in surprise. That seemed awfully quick to get something as important as sending a girl to a new home ready. But Evie didn't seem surprised at her father's words, so such fast placements should be, if not common, at least not unheard of.

"I'll be here," Evie promised. "And I'll clear up my Friday afternoon so I can get to know her."

"The file Jonas lent me is still inside, if you want to get an idea of what she's like before we meet her," Mr. McLaren informed.

After thinking about the issue for a moment, Evie replied, "I think not. It might be better if I go into it with an open mind. It's the way I went when I was little."

Zac remembered that. Of the few arrivals of Evie's 'temporary siblings' he could recall, she had always known next to nothing about them before they arrived. It usually worked out pretty well. Although Evie hadn't become particularly close to any of her foster siblings, they had generally gotten along well, and there had been none with whom she got along really badly.

With an accepting nod, Mr. McLaren asked, "And what about you two? Did you have a good day?"

Evie's gaze shifted away from her father, and Zac gulped at the question. They both wished they could give an affirmative answer, but all things considered, what they had come to suspect about Erik had put quite a dampener on their day. Now that Mr. McLaren knew about the merpeople secret, lying to him about anything that took place there had become more difficult. And although everyone had agreed with the idea of Mr. McLaren using any contacts he might have to see if he located Erik, neither Zac nor Evie were thrilled about breaking the news to him.

"It could have been a lot better," Zac finally replied, as Mr. McLaren started to frown in concern. "It could have been worse, but it could also have been a lot better."

Mr. McLaren blinked in confusion. "Why do you say that?"

Zac and Evie shifted in their spots and exchanged a nervous look. They both knew they couldn't ask him to find Erik without telling him why they wanted to, but the idea of telling him there was a potentially vengeful evil merman on the horizon didn't sound appealing to any of them.

This time, Evie was the one who spoke first. "Do you remember Erik? That merman I told you about?"

Mr. McLaren's eyes narrowed. "What of it?"

"It turns out he may not be as willing to leave us alone as we hoped." Zac replied.

As Mr. McLaren frowned in confusion, Zac gathered himself, and then he and Evie started filling him on what they had learned regarding Erik and what looked like an incoming plot for revenge.

* * *

Their arms extended in the typical stance merpeople assumed when they swam, the two mermaids entered the moon pool on Mako Island, under a circle of dark-blue sky specked with twinkling stars. Once they were at the centre, the leading one, with a slender profile, turned right, while the other, with a fuller figure, kept swimming forward. Once they reached the underwater ledge that almost completely circled the moon pool, the two mermaids surfaced and turned around so they could support themselves on it.

"Alright, Rita," Veridia told her. "We are at a private place, away from prying eyes and eavesdropping ears. What is it that you needed to tell me?"

Rita hesitated before she replied. The news she had gotten were worrisome indeed, particularly the ones Zac had given her this afternoon. She still wasn't sure of how to break the news to Veridia, but she had known since learning about the merman that was collecting venoms with the help of two mermaids that the pod had to know about them for its own sake. Learning about the new suspicions regarding Gunnar and Erik had been the final push. She still wished to not have to be the one telling Veridia, but she understood why the younger mermaids were reluctant to do so, and she had wasted enough time already.

"Well, Rita?" Veridia insisted. "What is it?"

Rita took a deep breath to steel herself, and then asked the most important question that came to her, "Is everyone in the pod accounted for?"

Veridia blinked at the question.

"I think so. Other than Zac and Evie, everyone is here and asleep," Veridia frowned inquisitively. "Why?"

Rita took another deep breath, trying to bring the words out of her as she let it out. Then, she explained.

"Apparently, there are some potentially dangerous mermen in the area. Mimmi and Ondina told me that Nixie and Lyla saw one yesterday, several hundreds of kilometres from here, collecting all kinds of venoms. There were two mermaids with him."

By the end of her explanation, a strange noose seemed to have started to tighten around her throat. But to her surprise, Veridia remained remarkably look. No widening of the eyes, no scared gasp, nothing that suggested she was as scared as Rita thought she would be upon learning such news. There was a rather fast pulsing in her throat, but it ceased after a second or two.

"What kind of venoms?" Veridia asked, her voice as even as her expression would have suggested.

Her whole posture loosening up at Veridia's calm, Rita said, "I don't know exactly. But Mimmi said that only a few of the ones Nixie and Lyla told them about don't match any potion that even she knows about. And of those they remembered by the time they talked to me, only two were part of any potion that I know, and none of them was part of a dangerous potion."

Once more, Veridia's eyes didn't widen, but by now there seemed to be a strange stiffness to her face, one that Rita recognized from their young years whenever Veridia was trying to force herself to stay calm.

"You said 'mermen'," Veridia at last said. "So far you've only mentioned one."

Rita temporarily glanced at her tail as it swayed up and down in the water. This was it.

"There is another one who started working at the marine park two days ago," Rita explained. "Mimmi and Ondina told me yesterday that they thought he might be a merman, but it was only today that we got confirmation that he is one."

Veridia glared at her, her fingers digging into the ledge underneath her.

"Why wasn't I informed directly, and why did you wait so long before telling me?"

Rita winced. In a sense, she knew that a day was not 'so long', but at the same time, it would still have been more than long enough for plenty of things to have happened to many mermaids in the pod. Her only source of relief was that apparently it wasn't the case.

"They were a bit nervous about having to be the ones to inform you," Rita explained. "You know you're not exactly known for being an approachable mermaid."

Veridia's gaze softened just a tad, but the bulk of her glare remained in place.

"And I wasn't very sure of how to tell you this myself, especially after what Zac has told me this afternoon," Rita added.

For the first time since the conversation began, Veridia's eyes actually widened in alarm for a split-second. She clasped her fingers into the ledge with so much force that Rita feared they would shatter.

"What has he told you?"

Again, Rita took a deep breath before replying. "Apparently, the merman working at the marine park – Gunnar – is here because he is in league with Erik."

Once more, Veridia's eyes widened – and this time, it lasted several moments.

"The merman who almost started up the chamber?" Veridia uttered in a voice louder than her usual one.

Rita gave a clipped nod. "There is no actual certainty of it, but Gunnar seems to know who we all are, and the assumption so far is that he knows because Erik has told him."

There could be other ways, granted, but any of them would reveal some kind of obsessive interest in them, the kind of interest Rita didn't really picture anyone with good intentions to have. Not to mention that the way Gunnar had spoken to them didn't suggest good intentions at all. Even Doctor Ross had picked up on his hostility, in spite of only seeing it once.

"And what about that merman with the two mermaids?" Veridia demanded. "Is there anything else you want to tell me about them, or do you intend to hold it back for a later time?"

Rita looked her best friend squarely in the eyes. "I already told you everything I know about them. And I tried to tell you everything as soon as I was sure of how much exactly I had to tell you." She tried to end on a firm note, but it faltered thanks to her hesitation of whether she should share the last part of the truth. After a few seconds, her honesty won out and she added, "And as soon as I had convinced myself that things can actually become very bad in a near future."

At last, Veridia's glare faded completely, and she gave her a sympathetic nod.

Still, Rita realized she had made a mistake in waiting for so long before sharing the news. But she hadn't been lying about trying to convince herself things weren't as bad as it now seemed they could be. She had spent hours reliving the stories about the war she had been told about when she was young, and conjuring a whole multitude of scenarios in which mermen could retaliate even though they no longer had the trident or the chamber. Although mermen hadn't been seen in years before Zac – before him, even the fact Nerissa had a son hadn't been more than a rumour – the fear of them was still instilled in mermaids from a young age. And now that more of them were appearing, it seemed there might be a good reason for that.

Still, Veridia seemed remarkably calm, as if she knew something Rita didn't. Perhaps she did; Rita knew that there were things the mermaid council kept from the lower-ranking members of the pod.

"What are you going to do?" Rita asked.

"I'll inform the pod first thing in the morning," Veridia stated. "Then we'll be on the lookout for those mermen and ask them for a few explanations once we catch them."

Part of Rita was relieved at seeing Veridia calm, but the rest of her couldn't help a shiver of wariness.

"That is not another way to say 'we're going to hunt them down and kill them' is it?" Before Veridia could accuse her of being too soft, Rita added, "Granted, it doesn't seem like they're friendly, but perhaps we ought to talk to them before we actually take up arms. You said yourself that Zac has shown mermen and mermaids can live in peace."

Veridia did not flinch or falter.

"Zac may have proved himself, but that does not excuse the rest of his kind from whatever evil deeds they do. If they turn out to be as aggressive as we fear, we'll respond in turn."

"That other merman had two mermaids with him," Rita pointed out. "He may very well not be aggressive."

"He may also have them under a spell."

Rita wanted to refute that, but she had no true arguments against it. It was certainly possible that that merman had the two mermaids under a spell. If mermaids knew siren songs that had the power to enchant, mermen certainly could know them too.

"Maybe," she acknowledged. "But I still suggest you try out a peaceful solution first. The feud between mermaids and mermen is meant to be ancient history."

"And it will stay that way as long as mermen don't try to start another war," Veridia replied.

Rita sighed, considering her case lost. Veridia seemed to be just too determined to an aggressive approach.

"Just remember not to be pre-emptively aggressive," Rita couldn't help to say. "Otherwise, any chance there still is to solve things peacefully may be lost."

To Rita's relief, Veridia did not object this time, and there was a flicker of agreement in her eyes. Hopefully she would stick to it, because Rita shuddered to think of all the lives that could be lost if another war like the one from thousands of years ago took place.

For the next seconds, the two of them remained in silence, their tails floating horizontally with regular sways. Then, Rita pushed herself off of the ledge.

"That is all I had to tell you," she said. "I'll be going home now."

She started breast-stroking toward the tunnel until she had enough tail space to dive away, but right as she started to lean forward for a dive, Veridia spoke up.

"Rita, wait."

Rita looked up at her friend.

"Have you thought any more about my offer?" Veridia asked.

Rita forced back a burst of frustration. If there was any subject she wouldn't have wanted to discuss with Veridia, it was this one.

"I have," she replied. "And things still haven't changed."

"But why?" Veridia pushed on, frustration in her entire inflection. "You know you could come back to the pod now."

Yes, she did know that. But in spite of herself, of how much she knew that clinging to old grudges was not healthy, there were too many reasons for her not to leave land and join Veridia's pod.

"Is there another land person?" Veridia shot at her.

Rita briefly glanced down. She might not have actually believed there was any chance of that, but she had unwittingly guessed one of the reasons Rita felt reluctant to return.

"Maybe," she replied, thinking about Doctor Ross, and the way she, as of late, in a way, found herself looking forward to the meetings they had.

Veridia's eyes bugged out in astonishment at the message Rita had conveyed by not replying.

"I can't believe this," she breathed.

"Neither could I," Rita replied. "But it's the way things seem to be going."

At the time, it was a bit difficult to say. While meetings with Doctor Ross were becoming more frequent, there always seemed to be a legitimate reason behind them. Sure, Doctor Ross sometimes made playful moves on her, usually in a similar manner to how he'd told her that he loved a mystery on the day she helped Heidi, but that was it. For all his flirting, he had never asked her out, or tried to call her by her first name, or told her to do the same to him. She knew that his given name was Mitchell, and that he had gone by Mitch before becoming director of the marine park (even though he'd already had a doctorate by then) but she'd never addressed him as such, just like he hadn't ever called her anything less formal than 'Miss Santos'.

But she found herself looking forward to the meetings with him. She found herself enjoying being with him. She appreciated how he always listened to what she had to say and how he took her words into account. She liked his gentlemanly mannerisms, such as the way he held the door open for people walking into buildings behind him. She liked how respectful he was of everyone who worked at the park, from the dolphin trainers to the janitors. She liked his compassion and empathy for the ill or injured animals the marine park took care of, the way he always tried to get to the bottom of whatever was wrong with them, and the way he always believed there was hope.

Rita might not know his feelings for her, but she was starting to entertain the thought of being more 'up-to-date' and asking him out if he took much longer to do it herself.

She returned to reality with a start at the sound of a frustrated huff. Her thoughts must have somehow been visible, judging from the way Veridia was scowling.

"Why are you setting yourself up for another potential heartbreak?" Veridia insisted, looking about to raise her hands in hopelessness. "You know how many things can go wrong in a relationship with whoever that man is, don't you?"

Rita did everything she could not to roll her eyes. Veridia might mean well, but this was one thing she had never managed to even try to understand. It had been exactly the same way with Harry; Veridia had thought she was demented and done everything she could to talk her out of it, until she eventually gave up. Now she might not be doing those things yet, but it seemed like that would not take long, particularly the part about thinking she was demented.

"I'm well aware, Veridia. But I'm old enough to make up my own mind. Whatever happens, happens. And whatever happens, it's still a long way ahead."

She might fancy Doctor Ross, but she wasn't a lovesick youth just out of mermaid school, and she certainly wasn't an idiot either. She would only tell him the mermaid secret when (and if) she both felt she was absolutely sure she could trust him with it and when (and if) she gathered enough bravery to do it. It had taken her about a year and a half to share it with Harry; she expected it would take at least as long to do it with Doctor Ross. Probably longer. Not because she found him more likely to blab than Harry, but just because she thought it would be much harder to build up the bravery to do it for a second time.

"And even if there wasn't any other land person, I have a whole school to look after. I can't leave them."

Especially not when it seemed that the most likely candidate for her replacement was Mrs. Trumble. If someone fit for the job showed up, she'd be perfectly willing to step down (although she was by no means eager to do so), but just the idea of leaving it with Mrs. Trumble made her skin crawl whether she was in human or mermaid form. How the school board found her a suitable enough candidate to even accept her application, Rita would never know, but she certainly wasn't going to quit her job while that cross between a sea snake and a blue-ringed octopus who did not even try to appear harmless was next in line for the spot.

"I'm sorry, Veridia," Rita said. "But as you said, I made my choice long ago."

Veridia nodded, a composed expression on her face that seemed like a mask she had put on. She did that from a young age whenever she had to mask any emotion, especially sadness.

"But if you ever need my help, don't be afraid to ask. I'll help you with anything I can."

Veridia didn't react to that statement, although Rita knew she had heard her.

Unsure of what else to say, Rita raised a hand in farewell, dove toward the tunnel, and swam out of the moon pool.

* * *

Doing their best not to miss any important detail, Zac and Evie explained to Mr. McLaren what they meant, from Gunnar's sudden arrival to the marine park to the deduction Cam had made about Gunnar having learned about them through Erik, which seemed to mean Gunnar was working for Erik. They also told him of their idea for him to help find Erik, so they could know where they had to go to put a stop to whatever he was up to. Both took the care to emphasize that neither Gunnar nor Erik had actually done anything particularly nasty yet (discounting Erik's failed attempt at starting up the chamber), but that seemed to be as poor a consolation to Mr. McLaren as it was for Zac and Evie.

"Crikey…" it was all Mr McLaren could mutter.

 _Indeed._ Zac thought. That word did fit their situation, although it also was quite weak given the circunstances.

With that looked like considerable effort, Mr. McLaren put himself together and said, "Of course I'll help. If that boy is up to what you suggest he is, he needs to be found." His look turning more serious that Zac ever remembered him seeing, he added, "I should be able to find him if he is still on land, but it will at least be a few days, so be very careful during that time. Don't go to deserted spots, try to keep an eye out for suspicious people, and don't get confrontational with anyone who looks like he might be working for that Erik. We don't know what they can do."

Zac couldn't help but be impressed. After everything he had learned and the dangerous situation he had found himself in by association, Mr. McLaren still managed to step into the parent/parental figure shoes and hand out advice instead of giving in to the fear he must surely be feeling. But even more impressively, he didn't go into a denial phase or simply forbid them from doing anything related to their merpeople side as if it was all it took for the Erik-problem to disappear.

"To think he seemed such a nice kid at your party…" Mr. McLaren told Evie.

Zac and Evie nodded in compassion.

"Believe me dad, it turned out to be a much bigger surprise for us." Evie replied.

And the worst part was that it shouldn't have. Given Erik's constant obsession with the merman chamber, it shouldn't have been that big a surprise that he'd go so far to start it. All the same, looking at Mr. McLaren's stricken face made Zac grateful for one thing: his parents still didn't know. While it was true that Mr. McLaren knowing was making things easier in this regard, it was hard enough for Zac to burden him like this. He didn't want his parents to endure the same thing.

And speaking of his parents, he needed to meet them, as he'd promised to have dinner with them tonight.

"I should get going," he said. "My parents are probably wondering where I am already."

Evie nodded, and she and Zac exchanged a peck before he left. He raised his hand at Mr. McLaren and turned around to leave. But he only made the first step before he was stopped.

"Zac?" Mr. McLaren spoke up. "A word before you go, if you please?"

Surprised, Zac shook his head in assent. Mr. McLaren turned to Evie.

"Alone?"

"Sure, dad."

He and Evie exchanged a look, silently agreeing that he'd fill her in tomorrow, presumably while they waited for Chris at the airport. Then she went inside.

As Mr. McLaren gestured to the table on the porch, both of them sat, Zac facing the door and Mr. McLaren with his back to it.

"So, what is this word you wanted to have with me, Mr. McLaren?" Zac asked.

The first response he got was a deep breath. Then, as if Mr. McLaren had finished gathering himself, he said, "I think you should tell Rob and Lauren about your tail."

Zac's heart sank down to his feet. This was it; the one moment he had been dreading since Evie had told her father about him. She had promised Mr. McLaren wouldn't tell his parents anything – and so far that had clearly been true, because he hadn't gotten any strange questions from them yet – but she had also warned him that her father would try to talk to him about the issue himself. Zac trusted him not to blab, but he didn't think his resolve to not tell his parents would withstand anything Mr. McLaren had to say. He had been able to get Mimmi and Evie to respect his decision, but Mr. McLaren would be much more stubborn on the topic for sure.

"I can't," Zac stated from the get-go, with every bit of firmness he could bring forth.

"Why?" Mr. McLaren asked. "They are your parents. You may not have their blood, or even be of their species, but they are your parents. They love you, and they are having a hard time with this secret. They deserve to know the truth."

Zac looked down. Mr. McLaren's words were nothing new, but hearing his thoughts echoed by another person somehow felt like the guilt he felt over keeping the secret was being jabbed with a hot poker.

"I know," Zac murmured. "But I can't tell them."

Mr. McLaren was silent for a few seconds, a thoughtful look on his face as if he was trying to figure out the exact source of the problem.

"Are you afraid they will reject you just because of your tail?" he asked. "They wouldn't do that. Rob and Lauren aren't that kind of people. They may be a bit confused, and hurt, and I acknowledge Rob at least may have a much harder time believing it than I had – and it was no picnic for me either – but they'll still love you."

"They'd learn that the son they looked after for sixteen years wasn't even human," Zac stated. "How can you be so sure learning that wouldn't change anything?"

There. He'd said it. That was the source of all his issues with not telling his parents about his tail. It was something Evie didn't have. Even though she was now technically a mermaid (though many in the pod still addressed her as a land girl because she had been born as such) she had been born as a human, and as Mr. McLaren's biological daughter. No matter how much he wanted to pretend otherwise, both of those things had an impact. And even though she believed he should tell his parents, Evie understood that as much as someone who didn't share the predicament could. Hopefully Mr. McLaren also would.

"Do you think I treat you differently just because I know that you're not human?" Mr. McLaren inquired.

Zac sat straighter, a confused frown on his face.

"No, of course not."

How that was possible, he didn't know, but for how little time had passed since he'd learned the truth, Mr. McLaren hadn't treated him any differently since then – which might actually be even more incredible, as it showed Mr. McLaren had needed very time to come around to the whole idea.

"Then why do you think they would?" Mr. McLaren insisted.

Zac's posture sagged again, and a tired sigh left his lips. Like a lot of things Mr. McLaren had said, those words echoed both Evie's and Mimmi's. And he kind of got where they were coming from. But it didn't mean that his fear was any less real.

"You're not my father," Zac tried to explain. "They are my parents. How do you think they will feel by knowing they have a not-human son? It's as if a baby left on someone's doorstep suddenly took off a suit to show a cat underneath, or as if someone's brother suddenly turned out to be an alien in disguise."

He might have gone for the outlandish approach, but it conveyed his point well enough. But Mr. McLaren didn't seem deterred by it, as he also had a reply for that.

"You may not be a human, but you have a human heart. You have a human soul. As far as I can tell, all merpeople have hearts and souls that are just like humans'. Of course, that's not always a good thing, as your former friend Erik is currently showing, but you are a good kid. You don't love your parents any less just because they're human and you're not, do you?"

"Of course not!" Zac explained without hesitation.

They may not have been his species, but it didn't make them any less his parents, and he didn't love them any less in spite of knowing he was adopted or that he wasn't human.

"Then why do you think the opposite will be true?" Mr. McLaren insisted.

Any words Zac might have were silenced on the spot. As much as he wanted to say otherwise, he had no true rational reply to that. Mr. McLaren was right. If merpeople had human hearts, human souls, and human feelings, then real humans, especially kind-hearted humans like his parents, would have them all the more. Both Evie and Mimmi had made this point to him, and Zac had also agreed then, but somehow hearing it from a human who didn't have to contend with keeping a tail secret made it all the more real.

 _One would think he's been planning this conversation from the moment Evie told him the secret._ Zac thought.

For all Zac knew, he might have. Mr. McLaren was friends with his parents, understood how they felt about the secret, and was a compassionate man. It made sense he would also want them to stop going through what he had endured. And when all was said and done, Zac truly wished he could just bring himself to telling his parents. But there was one reason he didn't.

"I just can't tell them," he said. "And that's all I have to say."

This time, Mr. McLaren had no reply. He looked downcast, and a tad disappointed, but he was silent. That was all Zac could really ask for.

"I'm sorry," he said, hoping that would somehow make a difference.

His heart back in its normal spot, but still heavier than usual, Zac stood up and turned around to leave. He walked away and got to the bottom of the steps leading to the grass without any problem, but after a few paces, he heard Mr. McLaren approaching behind him.

As Zac turned around to face him, he spoke up, "If you won't tell them for any other reason, at least think about this."

After giving him a probing look, as if to make sure he had all of Zac's attention, Mr. McLaren spoke up. "If this Erik and whatever goons he has turn out to be as dangerous as we all fear, Rob and Lauren will also be in danger. Not only that, they will be in even more danger than any of us, because they don't know, so any merman could get close to them under false pretences and do something to them just to get to you or to ensure your cooperation. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"

The words hit him like a punch to the heart.

In all his considerations about Erik and what he might be up to, he had never once considered that Erik might actually be willing to hurt his parents as part of any plot for revenge. And yet, now that it had been spelled out to him, it seemed as obvious as a blue whale right in front of his nose. Zac had been one of the main reasons Erik had so many problems starting up the chamber, not to mention the reason the act had failed. If Erik really wanted revenge, his parents would make an easy target, especially if they didn't know about the secret.

 _No._ Zac told himself. _Erik can't be that far gone._

Couldn't he? If Erik was at the point of sending henchmen, how could Zac be sure he wasn't at the point of telling them to carry out kidnappings, torture sessions, or whatever other things his mind came up with?

 _It can't be. He's not heartless. And he wouldn't want to expose himself, not when he goes as far to commit sabotage to keep the secret._

But what if the chamber had done something to him while he was in it? Like Zac had told Cam, magic was unpredictable. For all he knew, it had done something to Erik's personality. That might even be the reason he was acting like that, sending henchmen and getting revenge. Maybe being in the chamber had somehow affected his mind. Zac might have been good as new since he had gotten his magic back, but things could be different with Erik. Maybe the fact he wasn't a descendant of the merman who built the chamber made a difference. Or maybe it was the fact his attempt at shutting down the chamber had ended with him expelled from the water pillar; perhaps something else had gone awry.

It made no difference. The danger Mr. McLaren had brought up was too real. And if his parents remained ignorant of the truth, they would be far too exposed.

"Just think about it," Mr. McLaren added. "I still promise I won't tell anything, but I do hope you end up doing so yourself."

With a wordless nod, Zac turned around and kept his way. He didn't know what to say to Mr. McLaren. Part of him wanted to get angry at him for bringing it up, but most of him knew that wasn't Mr. McLaren's fault. Even if he hadn't thought about it, Erik might well have. And if he had thought about it and kept quiet, then, if Erik ever carried out such a plan, Zac would be angry at Mr. McLaren for not having pointed it out. As painful as it was to say, it was a good thing Mr. McLaren had warned him about it.

A strange burden starting to build up in his heart, Zac looked down as he walked. Mr. McLaren had told him to think about it, but there was really nothing to think about. He couldn't let his parents be exposed to a danger like the one Erik seemed to be posing. As difficult as it was, he just had to tell them the truth so they could protect themselves. There was no way around it.

Tomorrow morning, at the time he was supposed to meet Evie, Mimmi, and Ondina for them to wait for Chris at the airport, he would tell them of his decision, and then they would readjust their plan, depending on whatever the three of them said. Ondina would likely be pissed off about more land people learning their secret, but Zac would take it if it meant his parents would be safe. Evie and Mimmi likely wouldn't be that happy themselves either; while they wanted him to tell his parents, they wouldn't want him to do it for such a reason.

But maybe the time to do so had just come. Most secrets could last forever, and while Zac hoped with all his strength that this one was kept from people at large until the world ended, by now his parents just had to know.

With a sigh that sounded louder than an elephant's in his ears, Zac kept ambling toward his home, the weight of having to tell his parents the truth worse than the weakness he'd felt when the trident stone drained him dry.

* * *

 **Well, this was it. The longest chapter of this fic ever. I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **As I said last chapter, here is a return to fancasting.**

 **Kailani Kapule - Emmanuelle Chriqui (who plays Sergeant Raphaelle Veracruz in Murder in the First)**

 **Hali Kapule - Victoria Justice (who played Lola Marinez in Zoey 101 and Tori Vega in Victorious)**

 **Kopi Kapule - Nicole Muñoz (who played young Lily Page in Once Upon a Time and Christie Tarr in Defiance)**

 **And as I said in the beginning of this chapter, a 'crossover character' was established, in a way at least, as per my use of the, to my perception at least, relatively common fan theory that Mitch from Season 1 of H2O - Just Add Water and Dr. Ross from Mako Mermaids - An H2O Adventure are the same character. So technically we've already had an H2O character featured in this story.**

 **As I said, I won't be putting this story in the crossover section, due to to both universes already having been confirmed as one and the same officially (even though it happened in a season this universe's canon disregards).**

 **To those of you who want to see more H2O characters, two more will make their first apperance next chapter. Neither of them will be any of the girls or their boyfriends, but if it's any consolation one of them is, I believe, quite beloved (the other, as far as I know, isn't really beloved). I hope you enjoy seeing them.**


	11. Chapter 11: Meeting Families And Friends

**So, here is a new chapter. This one is much shorter than the previous one, although I wouldn't call it filler per se, as at least one important relationship is established here.**

 **Also, as I told you on the previous chapter, two more H2O characters will make their debut in this story starting this chapter. I hope you enjoy their return, even though one of them is not really beloved from what I can tell.**

 **And of course, I also hope you enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

 **Chapter 11 – Meeting Families And Friends**

Ever since she was young, Mimmi had always been known among the mermaids of the Mako Pod as a very early fish (her kind's equivalent of the human expression 'early bird'). Unlike Sirena or Ondina, who would gladly sleep until the sun was well above the horizon, Mimmi as a rule awoke while only half of it was visible, and had little problems doing so even earlier.

But even she had her limits, and being in the Gold Coast Airport since a quarter to six in the morning – in other words, for forty-five minutes and counting – was testing them just a tiny bit, as she had had to wake up at four o'clock in the morning, well before the sun had risen. Still, she would have been able to handle it on an ordinary day, and today, knowing she was about to see Chris was enough to give her any push she might have needed.

Which was more than could be said for her best friend.

"I don't understand these land people's habits." Ondina said as the two of them sat at a table belonging to the café located by the exit of the international arrivals area. "Couldn't they have arranged things so that their flying machines would all arrive at a decent time?"

Ondina's sentence was punctuated by a massive yawn, joined by her leaning her head on her right hand as if she, for the tiniest of instants, intended to doze off for a bit. But just a second afterwards, she sat straighter again, her eyes wide and alert as if she was afraid someone would sneak up on her and kill her if she fell asleep.

"I suppose that they have enough airplanes arriving that they have to start early and finish late if they don't want to clutter the airport." Mimmi replied. "But that's all I can tell you. If you want to know more, you'll have to ask someone who knows about it."

If Zac and Evie were with them, presumably they would be able to answer on the spot. Both of them were well-traveled, and had been both to this airport and others around the world. But while Zac and Evie were initially meant to have come with them to meet Chris, plans had changed last night, as they had told Ondina and Mimmi upon meeting them at Rita's house over an hour ago.

Last night, during a conversation with Zac, Evie's dad had pointed out that Erik could hurt Mr. and Mrs. Blakely during his attempts at a revenge, which had made Zac decide to stay with his parents to keep them safe. Ondina had adamantly insisted that Erik couldn't be so far gone as to do such a thing, and in spite of her dislike for the merman who had broken her best friend's heart, Mimmi had to agree it did not sound likely. But it certainly sounded within the realm of possibilities, and she would never blame Zac for being worried about his parents.

As for Evie, she also hadn't come along due to growing worried after hearing what her father told Zac, not only because of Mr. McLaren, but also because of Alana, who had no idea that there were marauding mermen about. Even if they didn't know that Evie cared about her, they might end up hurting her just because she was a mermaid who happened to be alone and could be mistaken as belonging to the pod. So, after apologizing to both Mimmi and Ondina, Evie had gone to Alana's group home on her own, hoping that leaving at a quarter past five in the morning was early enough to catch Alana still there. That decision did sound a bit more of an exaggeration, but although Evie had acknowledged she would be in for one very long wait, as the group home's door only opened at seven and Alana most likely wouldn't be waiting to bolt outside the second that happened, Evie had preferred that to potentially getting there too late to warn Alana and having to wait until she came back to do so, leaving several hours in which something could happen to her. And like she couldn't blame Zac for being worried about his parents, Mimmi couldn't fault Evie for caring about Alana enough to want to warn her.

So, as a result of those changes in plans, Mimmi and Ondina were at the airport on their own, while also joined by plenty of other people sitting at the same café, the closest of them being an elderly bearded man in olive-green trousers and a Hawaiian shirt who had sat two tables away from Mimmi and Ondina after ordering a croissant and a mug of milky coffee at the café's counter.

"Well, if they're going to make us be here this early, the very least they could do was to let people out of those metal tubes at the right time." Ondina grumbled.

"They said there was a problem unloading the luggage." Mimmi reminded, pointing out the explanation they had both heard for none of the passengers in Chris' flight being out here yet, even though his plane had landed half-an-hour ago.

Ondina snorted in annoyance.

"For all the racket about land people's technology and system, it seems to have a lot of things where it can go wrong." She remarked.

Mimmi couldn't help a frown at those words. Although Chris' airplane had already landed, one thing she disliked about them was the fact that if something went bad it meant near-certain death. Every other means of transportation fared better in that regard: cars were typically on the ground, trains were the same, and boats at least were in water you could float on. But airplanes were kilometres above the sea or the ground. If they stopped, they fell, and the fall was very big. For how much land people's statistics seemed to find them safe, she just couldn't move past her unease when it came to that means of transportation.

"When will he be here?" Ondina insisted for at least the third time in the last ten minutes. "I'm tired of waiting."

Mimmi didn't have a true answer for that. Going off of what Zac and Evie had told them about potential problems with airplane arrivals, Chris could take as much as only one more minute to another half-an-hour, if not longer. And although she wasn't as sleepy as Ondina, she was also tired of waiting. But one of them had to remain the level-headed one.

"With luck, it won't be much longer," she said as she gave another look at the door Chris would get out through.

"Why are we even here anyway?" Ondina went on. "I could get behind you coming here to meet him when things were peaceful, but now? We have who knows how many mermen about to cause damage in the vicinity. Being with the pod to help planning how to stop them would be a much better use of our time. Heck, even telling Zac's parents about us would be a much better use of our time, as much as I think that this idea of telling Zac's parents about us is the dumbest idea in the history of dumbest ideas."

"Hush!" Mimmi hissed.

They were surrounded by land people; the bearded old man two tables away in particular could have heard them. Ondina must have realized what Mimmi had noticed, because she didn't make any angry remark.

The man didn't seem to have noticed the conversation, though; he wasn't still like people tended to be when listening out for anything, nor was he glancing sideways at them. Either he was hard of hearing or was simply distracted with something else.

"I've wanted to see Chris again for months," Mimmi replied once she was sure it was safe, but being careful to keep her voice down anyway. "I'm not letting Erik or any of his plots get in the way of that."

Besides, she was worried that Erik or anyone working for him might do something to Chris. Erik had been around for one of the three months Chris had been away, and she had already been keeping a long-distance relationship with him then. As someone close to Mimmi but unaware of the mermaid secret, he would have his guard down against any mermen who might try to hurt him. If she waited for Chris at the airport, he wouldn't be at such a big risk, as no merman would be dumb enough to get into a battle with her at such a public place. She knew she'd have to come up with something more efficient on a long-term basis, but for now, this would do.

"And Evie told her dad." Mimmi went on. "Zac can also tell his parents."

Granted, Ondina had also complained about that, but nowhere near as much as she had tried to when Zac told her that he wanted to tell the truth to his parents. If not for Mimmi insisting that they could miss Chris' arrival if they kept arguing, Ondina probably would have spent the rest of the day delving into the reasons Zac shouldn't do that. And she seemed about to restart that.

"That was different." She insisted. "Evie's dad was just a diver, and still open-minded enough to accept the magic in the world. It's not the same thing with Zac's parents. Granted, Zac's mom might still accept us for what we are, but Zac's father is a freaking doctor! The first thing he'll do once he learns of this is try to cure us!"

Mimmi glanced around in alarm; even though Ondina was doing a better job of keeping her voice down this time, the old man could still have heard them. But again, he was proving to be either too hard of hearing or too distracted.

Mimmi wouldn't say that she couldn't see Ondina's reasoning. But like he had told them before they had come to the airport, Zac was deadest on telling the truth to his parents after he realized that the fact they didn't know about the mermaid secret meant they could become an easy target. Telling them would make the mermaid secret even less well kept, but Zac didn't want to put his parents' lives on the line, and Mimmi wasn't going to be selfish to the point of asking him to do it.

"He's Zac's father, and he loves his son," Mimmi said. "He wouldn't do anything that hurt him. And besides, science couldn't explain our powers. Once we show them to him, he'll believe us."

"Or think he's going crazy." Ondina posited.

It was a valid consideration, but it was one that had been given a solution in the quick conversation the four of them had.

"That's why Evie and I will be there as well, and why Zac and Evie will ask Mr. McLaren to help us with it before his morning tour." Mimmi replied, referring to the plan she, Zac, and Evie had outlined before parting ways. "If our story is corroborated by someone who doesn't get a tail when wet, it will make things easier."

At least, she hoped it would. With land people, it wasn't always easy to tell. Some, like David, were more than willing to believe in the magic around them, but others always had to look for the scientific explanation for everything. Granted, science explained a lot of things, but it didn't explain everything. Then again, maybe it was good so many land people were closed to the idea of magic, otherwise maybe the existence of merpeople would have been discovered already.

"And then you're going to watch over Mr. McLaren's divers like a pod of guard dolphins, right?" Ondina almost accused.

Well, at least this was something Ondina hadn't yet complained about: Evie's plan to watch over her father and the tourists in his boat during their dive.

Besides being worried about what any merman might do to Alana, she had also been worried about what they might do to her father, especially while he was out at sea. So she had decided to covertly go along and watch over them to make sure no mermen would try anything. Zac had agreed to go along, and Mimmi would also be doing it for the morning, at least. While she would rather spend the whole day with Chris, she thought it was better to give him at least the morning to rest from the trip. And for all she knew, he might actually be too tired to want to do anything with her today.

"It's for the best." Mimmi replied.

Ondina looked like she wanted to protest, but then her eyes slipped shut and her head swayed forward in another display of tiredness. So she settled for a large yawn, and then said, in the same drowsy voice, "I really hope you know what you are doing."

Although sleepy, Ondina's voice was full of concern. In an effort to soothe her friend, Mimmi held her hand and gave her a calming smile. Ondina smiled sleepily back.

After a few seconds like that, Mimmi's eye caught a familiar figure ambling out of the international baggage collecting area, pushing a trolley with a black and a dark-orange travelling bag on top of it.

A different kind of smile blossomed on her face as she stood up and walked over to greet him. A brief prickle of concern hit her when she got closer; Chris was basically crawling along the floor, his eyes almost closed in sleepiness that seemed even stronger than Ondina's, and his chest hunched forward as he pushed the cart. But her smile returned an instant afterwards; after almost three months, she was at last seeing him in the flesh again.

"Chris!" She called. "Hi!"

Chris froze in place and his eyes fully opened when he heard her voice. His gaze locked on her for several seconds, and he blinked repeatedly as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

"Mimmi?" Chris asked in utter disbelief.

Rather than giving him a verbal reply, she walked forward and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. At first he faltered just a bit due to his tiredness, but then hugged her back.

When the hug ended, he pulled back still with the same disbelief in his eyes. Now that she was close to him, Mimmi could see the bags under his eyes, but the smile he gave her seemed to nullify them.

"What are you doing here?" Chris asked her in an almost awed voice. "I didn't know you were coming!"

Mimmi smiled coyly. "I wanted to surprise you."

Chris chuckled. "Well, you certainly managed it."

Mimmi giggled bashfully, but then her smile faltered at the sound of a very stern tone coming from behind her.

"So you're the famous Chris…"

Mimmi turned around to look at her best friend. Any remnant of sleepiness had vanished like an ice splinter thrown into a pot of boiling water. She stood as straight as a pencil with her arms folded and her coldest glare on her face, as if she intended to make Chris run away with the sheer might of it. Knowing Ondina, she likely did.

"And you must be the famous Ondina," Chris replied in a calm, even voice.

Ondina stood even straighter, if such a thing was possible, her eyes a fraction wider.

"Mimmi told me about you." Chris filled in. "She said you were the best and oldest friend she'd ever had."

Ondina's eyes returned to their previous look, but her posture did not shift in the least.

"And she's the best and oldest friend I ever had as well." She stated. "So be careful, because if you hurt her just a tiny little bit…"

Ondina then clenched her fist as if she was about to use her heating powers. A mute gasp made its way out of Mimmi's mouth. Surely she wouldn't be dumb or mean enough to actually try to boil Chris on their first meeting!

She looked at him in panic, but he wasn't sweating or red in the face or otherwise complaining of a sudden burn or sensation of heat. He looked a tad put off by Ondina's behaviour, but he pulled himself together and said, "I assure you, I have no intention whatsoever of hurting Mimmi, and will do everything I can not to hurt her unintentionally either."

Ondina's stern gaze remained as steady as ever, and her fist was still clenched, although thankfully she wasn't actually using any powers on him.

"I hope so." Her best friend finally said. "For her sake."

Before Ondina's behaviour could put him off any further, Mimmi held Chris' hand comfortingly and smiled at him.

"For what it's worth, I have no intention of hurting you either, and will also do my best not to hurt you by accident."

Chris gave her a smile of his own and squeezed her hand the tiniest bit.

For a few moments, the two of them stayed like that, but then, they were again interrupted.

"What about me? Don't I get a hug too?"

Mimmi let go of Chris' hand in alarm and turned to look at the new speaker. The bearded old man in the Hawaiian shirt and olive-green trousers who had been sitting two tables away from her and Ondina was now standing about three meters from them, with a happy smile that the beard did nothing to conceal. She glanced at Chris to see his reaction, and saw him looking with a mix of surprise and joy.

"Grandpa!" He exclaimed.

He strode over to the man, who raised his arms to meet him, and engulfed him in a hug that the man returned just as fiercely. Mimmi let out a relieved sigh. She wasn't used to land people cutting in on conversations like that, but now that she knew who he was, it made sense. Although they hadn't talked much of one another's families, Chris had told her he lived with his grandfather, and had also told her a few things about him. Only good things, and always conveying how much he loved him and how close the two of them were. The concept of a grandfather was even stranger to a mermaid than that of a father, but as she saw the hug they exchanged, no odd feeling even tried to find its way into her. They clearly loved one another as much as she believed families were supposed to; that was all that mattered.

"I didn't know you were coming either." Chris told his grandfather when their hug finally ended.

"I wouldn't miss your return." The old man said simply with a strange sad tone, as if he felt he had missed too many things in his life and didn't want to miss any more.

Chris patted his grandfather's back, and Mimmi saw from his change in posture that he was thinking about the same thing, whatever it was.

"Aren't you going to introduce us?" She offered in an effort to get them away from whatever they were thinking about.

Chris turned to her as she spoke, and the old man focused his attention on her and Ondina.

"I'm sorry." Chris said. "Where are my manners… Grandpa, these are Mimmi and Ondina." He gestured to each of them as he said their names, and then gestured to his grandfather. "Mimmi, Ondina, this is my grandfather, Max Hamilton."

Mimmi stepped forward and exchanged a handshake with Chris' grandfather.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hamilton." She said.

He raised his free hand at her. "It's Max. And it's a pleasure to meet you as well." He grinned and added, "I'm very glad to know the young lady who helped my grandson's dream come true."

Mimmi smiled back as she removed her hand from Max's. Now that she had met him, she could see why Chris spoke so fondly of him. There was a sense of warmth coming from him that just made her like him, even though they hadn't known one another for very long, even with the time they had been sitting at the same café.

"I only gave him a few tips." Mimmi replied. "He did all of the learning and hard work himself."

For whatever reason, a strangely sad look settled on Chris' face at the change in subject.

"Don't be modest." Chris replied. "I couldn't have done it without you. And you passed quite more than a few tips. Even the professionals there hadn't heard plenty of the things you taught me."

Mimmi's nose scrunched up at Chris' answer. Although she could sense he was genuinely complimenting her, there was a strange sadness to his tone that matched the one in his face. She couldn't specify what; somehow, it seemed he spoke like someone who hadn't gotten on the dolphin training program, even though he had gotten on the dolphin training program after all. But why would he be like that? Had he somehow failed or anything of the sort?

Before Mimmi could ask him, the sound of two stomping feet approached her from behind.

Max looked behind Mimmi only an instant before Ondina stopped beside her. He turned his hand toward her for another handshake, but without even looking at it, Ondina locked her eyes on Chris, her expression still as severe as before.

"Why is your grandfather the one who is here anyway?" Ondina demanded. "Shouldn't your parents be the ones here instead?"

Mimmi's heart leapt up to her neck. Max let out a mute gasp and his hand dropped as if all the strength had gone out of his arm. Chris clenched his fist and looked down, his eyes closed in pain. For the first time since Chris had arrived, the fierceness in Ondina's features gave way to something else: puzzlement.

Mimmi did all she could not to glare at her best friend. Not only because of how she was clearly trying to ruin her relationship with Chris, but because in her efforts to do so she had touched one of the sorer spots in Chris' life. For how relatively little they had talked about their families, Chris had explained to her why he lived with his grandfather rather than with his mother and father. When she had learned the reason behind it, Mimmi had wished she could reach through the screen to hug him.

"Chris' parents died when he was fourteen." Mimmi ground out with all the calm she could possibly muster.

Ondina's eyes widened again, every line of her face now filled with shame and regret.

"O… oh my…" She murmured. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

Chris did not reply, but the look he gave Ondina was none too gentle. Meanwhile, his left hand had moved to his grandfather's back, as if he was afraid Max would collapse without it to support him.

Max didn't wobble, but he had to take a deep breath to pull himself together. Chris kept his hand on his grandfather's back. And Ondina was now looking at her shoes, ashamed of putting Chris through the kind of pain she knw from experience due to her own mother's death and the insensitive questions related to it she sometimes got.

"You know, I have the day off." Mimmi pointed out in another bid to change subjects. "I have a few things to do in a while, but if you're up to it, we can go out after you take your bags home and I'm done with the stuff I need to take care of. What do you say?"

A hint of humour came to Chris' face, as he finally removed his hand from Max's back. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you out?"

Mimmi shrugged. "I don't know. Should you?"

She meant that sincerely. She had talked to people with dating experience about that, and no two opinions had been the same. For instance, Zac had insisted that Chris should be the one asking her out because she would sound too eager if she did, while Evie had said that these days there was no problem in a girl asking a boy out, and Rita had replied that she wasn't sure of how things currently worked on average, as she hadn't dated anyone since Harry's death.

"It depends on the kind of person you ask." Chris replied. Then he at last cracked a smile. "But for the record, I accept your invitation to go out with you."

Mimmi beamed at him. "Great! Where and when?"

Chris thought for a few seconds. "I'll pick you up at lunchtime. As for where, you can pick."

 _Great._ Mimmi thought.

Going out with Chris at lunchtime would give her more than enough time to meet Evie and Zac and for the three of them to tell the truth to Mr. and Mrs. Blakely, and if things went well, it could even turn into a celebration date of sorts.

"I wouldn't mind if you went out with Mimmi right after taking the bags home, you know?" Max put in.

Chris waved off the suggestion. "Thanks, Grandpa. But there's something I need to talk to you about first."

Max's eyes narrowed inquisitively. "What is it?"

Chris pursed his lips together as if to make sure no answer would come out before he had come up with the right one.

"Something I believe only you can answer." He replied, with a strangely serious look on his face.

Mimmi felt her curiosity peaking. What sort of thing might that be? Was it serious? Was Chris having some kind of problem? Could this be related to the reason he sounded so downcast even as he tried to compliment her on her knowledge about dolphins?

"Is it related to anything regarding the dolphin program?" Max insisted. "I'm sure Mimmi could answer it better than me."

"No, it's not related to the dolphin training program. But it's something I really need to ask you." He turned to Mimmi with an apologetic look. "Sorry for delaying our date until lunchtime."

"No problem." Mimmi reassured. "Like I said, there's some stuff I need to take care of."

Still, she kept guessing at the kind Chris had for his grandfather. Judging from his tone when he had spoken and from his face, it had to be serious, but she had difficulty thinking of anything that might be so serious as to have Chris looking like that.

 _I can ask him once we meet for lunch._ Mimmi thought. _He'll tell me what it is for sure by then._

And if he didn't, she couldn't exactly demand honesty from him when she wasn't giving to him in return. After all, Chris still thought she was a human. Once she told him about her tail – which she wouldn't do for a few more months at the very least – things might be different, but for now she wasn't exactly in a position to demand honesty. And she was sure she wouldn't have to do it anyway.

Again, her thoughts were interrupted by someone cutting into the conversation.

"Hey, Chris!" A voice called.

Mimmi turned toward the voice and saw a boy around Chris' age and height with longish blond hair and blue eyes walking toward them. He looked like he might be one of Chris' colleagues of the dolphin training program; if Mimmi had to guess, that was his best friend Karl, who he'd told Mimmi about once or twice. But as of the moment, she had no idea who the two people following him were. One was a tall burly man whose age was difficult to determine – he might be anywhere from his fifties to his seventies – with all of his hair and beard shaved off and wearing a navy-blue suit with a white shirt and a yellow dotted necktie. A woman in her mid-forties with lighty tanned skin, dark-brown hair and hazel eyes, wearing an expensive-looking blouse and skirt like those she had seen in some fashion magazines walked beside him.

When the boy approached, Max reached out to shake his hand, but the boy instead went in for a one-armed hug of the kind men tended to give, which Max ended up returning.

"How's it going, Max?" The boy asked when the hug ended.

"Pretty well." Max replied. "And you?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "All too happy to be out of that plane at last."

Max smiled in amusement and nodded as if saying he could imagine that.

"What's up, Karl?" Chris asked the boy, unwittingly confirming Mimmi's guess.

The boy jerked his thumb toward the airport's entrance.

"Well, I was going to say that I talked to my dad, and if you and Max want a lift, we'd gladly give you one, but now I think I'll instead ask about the two lovely babes you've got waiting for you."

Chris looked like he was going to say something, but before he made a sound his mouth slammed shut and his eyes widened in alarm, as if he had just had a realization that left him terrified.

Mimmi raised an eyebrow. What exactly was going through his head? First he was downcast about the dolphin training program he'd been deliriously happy about, now something about accepting a lift from his best friend scared him. What was going on with him?

Karl looked like he had noticed it as well, but instead of asking about it, he insisted, "Well, Chris? Who are they?"

Apparently relieved to have something to focus on, Chris gestured to each of them individually as he spoke. "Karl, these are Mimmi and Ondina. Mimmi, Ondina, this is my best friend, Karl Burgstaller. He was on the dolphin training program with me, but his real specialty is sharks."

Karl gave her an interested look.

"So you're the famous Mimmi." He extended his hand, and the two of them exchanged a handshake. "I've heard a lot about you."

"All of it good, I promise." Chris added, although a bit belatedly, as if he'd had to snap out of his fear in order to do so.

Karl gave Chris a puzzled look, but then his eyes caught Ondina and he turned to her, looking even more interested in her than he had in Mimmi. Ondina's eyes widened in fear.

"And hello there." Karl added as he stepped forward to shake Ondina's hand. Ondina stepped back, her arms raised and her eyes even winder than before.

"Yes." She almost shouted, looking as scared as a tuna fish facing a white shark. "Hello." She pointed at him so that her full arm would be between them and her. "There!"

Karl's brow furrowed in puzzlement. Mimmi couldn't blame him; it must be weird to have what looked like an ordinary land girl looking at you like you were going to eat her. But she wouldn't blame Ondina either. She'd had her heart broken only two months ago, and just yesterday she had learned that the one who'd broken her heart hadn't even loved her to begin with. It was no surprise that her wariness about boys, which had been on a high point since Erik's betrayal, would skyrocket.

To her relief, they were spared from any embarrassing questions by the tall bald man as he cleared his throat and gave a strangely pointed look at Chris, who jumped up in alarm when he realized he was there.

"Sorry, Mr. Burgstaller." Chris said. "I didn't see you there."

Apparently, neither had Max; the moment he saw the bald man, his eyes narrowed, his fists clenched, his back went ramrod-straight, and his mouth set into a rigid line. The bald man looked more relaxed, but all the same his eyes narrowed when he locked on Max.

"Max." Mr. Burgstaller said with a slight nod, but with no hint of friendliness, which had the woman nudging him in admonishment.

Max returned the slight nod, with any part of his body not required to doing so still as rigid as stone. "Karl."

Mimmi's eyes narrowed; in spite of her still present fear, so did Ondina's.

"I thought he was Karl." Mimmi replied, pointing at Chris' friend.

By way of explanation, Chris stood as if he was also going to introduce them to the man and the woman and vice versa. He first gestured to her and Ondina. "These are Mimmi and Ondina." He gestured to the woman and the man. "This is Karl's mother, Anneliese Burgstaller, and his father, who also is Karl Burgstaller."

Mimmi's eyes widened in surprise.

"Doesn't that get confusing around your house?" She asked Karl.

"Not at all." Karl replied. "Around the house, my father is 'the boss' and I'm 'Master Karl'. Or then, I'm Karl and my father is Mr. Burgstaller. Or, if you'd prefer yet another distinction, my father is Karl Engelbert Burgstaller IV, and I'm Karl Engelbert Burgstaller VII."

"What about Karl Engelbert Burgstaller V and Karl Engelbert Burgstaller VI?" Mimmi inquired.

"They're my cousins, both older than I am."

That made some sense, she supposed. It sounded a bit weird that there would be such an amount of family members with the same name, but maybe they were named after a famous ancestor or something. And Karl's father looked old enough to be his grandfather instead; enough time could have gone by for the other two relatives sharing their name to be born.

"I'm sorry, my dears, but we can't extend the ride offer to you as well." Mrs. Burgstaller said. "Our car is big, but it doesn't have enough room for all of you."

As if that was a cue Ondina was waiting for, she said, "That's alright. We weren't interested anyway." She turned toward Mimmi. "I'll wait for you at the airport's entrance."

And without as much as a goodbye to any of the others, she started walking away. Mimmi noticed Karl watched her going for a considerable time, a distant look in his eyes, and his parents giving her a look saying they were none too impressed with her manners.

In an effort to make up for Ondina's rudeness, Mimmi told Mrs. Burgstaller, "It's alright you can't give us a ride. We understand that cars have limited space."

Mrs. Burgstaller shrugged, and Mr. Burgstaller nodded politely. Mimmi then turned to Chris.

"I'm sorry, but I really have to take care of that matter I said I had to sort out."

She didn't particularly like the idea of doing so when Chris was being bothered by something, but she knew that she now couldn't take him aside to talk to him without peaking everyone's else curiosity and potentially get him in even more trouble. She'd have to talk to him at lunch.

"It's alright." Chris replied. "Where and when do you want me to pick you up?"

For an instant, Mimmi thought of giving him Rita's address, but she quickly decided against it. It seemed a bit too forward for him to go there before they even had their first date, and she didn't know if she had Rita's permission for Chris to go to her house, even if he never ended up actually getting in. As for the marine park, it didn't ring as an appropriate place either, although technically there was no problem with the idea. So there only was a choice left.

"Do you know where the _Ocean Café_ is?"

Chris nodded. "I do. I usually go to _Rikki's_ , but I've gone to the _Ocean Café_ a few times."

"Then we can meet at the outside tables at one o'clock, and decide where we'll go then, alright?" Mimmi suggested.

"Sure." Chris replied. "Until then. And good luck taking care of that stuff you mentioned."

Mimmi gave him a thankful smile, and then turned to his grandfather.

"It was lovely meeting you, Max."

Max gave her another warm smile. "Like I said, it was a pleasure meeting you as well. And good luck with whatever it is you need to take care of."

Mimmi smiled back, thankful for a second good luck wish. She certainly was going to need it with the task she had before her.

Then, with nothing else to do here, she gave Karl and his parents a nod in farewell and jogged away to meet Ondina at the airport's entrance, making all the efforts she could to get in whatever mindset was required to tell Mr and Mrs. Blakely the truth about herself and Zac.

* * *

 **So, this was it. A short chapter in terms of this fic, but one I hope you enjoyed.**

 **Again, here is more fancasting.**

 **Karl Engelbert Burgstaller IV (or, if you want me to be more specific, the Karl from H2O - Just Add Water in his old age) - Patrick Kilpatrick (who played Dallas Alder in NCIS: Los Angeles, Tony Connor in CSI: Miami, and, a longer time ago, John Wesley in Free Willy 3: The Rescue)**

 **Anneliese Burgstaller - Krista Allen (who played Lydia Marlowe in Significant Mother, Naomi Duvray in Castle, and, a longer time ago, Jenna Avid in Baywatch Hawaii)**

 **To any reader who is a bit confused about Ondina's hostility, please remember that she not only had her heart broken by Erik, but has just found out he may actually be plotting to hurt her. I tried to make that as clear as possible in the text itself, but just in case, I'll reiterate it here.**

 **And regarding Karl's advances on Ondina... well, remember that I actually first wrote him before Season 3 (4 on Netflix) premiered, and portrayed him as more of a playboy than he turned out to be. While I am trying to tone it down a bit, that side of him can't go away completely after I introduced it, at least not in a splitsecond as if it was never there.**

 **Thank you for reading this author's note. Again, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


	12. Chapter 12: Talking About Tails - Part I

**Here is one more chapter. Once again, they seem to be getting away from me in terms of length, to the point I made this one another two parter. Unfortunately, the second part will take some time to arrive, probably two weeks, if not more.**

 **I don't know if this chapter's content makes up for the delay, but if nothing else, there is the continued appearance of an H2O character, references to five others, and, to those who like my H2O fic 'Aratoro', there is also a reference to that story.**

 **All those things aside, I hope you enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

 **Chapter 12 – Talking About Tails – Part I**

The moment she arrived to the group home Alana was staying at, Evie couldn't help but feel relieved when she noticed wasn't one of those places that looked better on the picture than they did under direct observation. It looked a lot like other houses in the neighbourhood – a house with three floors that were visible from the outside, a white exterior, and a bluish grey roof, surrounded by a brick wall. All in all, it looked well taken care of, but Evie knew (fortunately not from personal experience) that although some were worse than others, group homes were never pleasant places to stay at. If this one was as nice as it looked, Alana might be coping somewhat with her situation, but Evie wanted to see her to know for sure.

But to see her, she'd had to wait for the group home's door to open, which thanks to her arriving there at a quarter to six would involve an hour and a quarter of killing time. It might have been an exaggeration, and she had acknowledged it when Zac and Mimmi had pointed it out, but she'd rather face boredom than risking Alana going another day without being warned. While Evie had already been worried about her before, knowing she was at risk from Gunnar at whatever other henchmen Erik might have only strengthened the feeling.

So, she had killed time, first by going on a rather long walk through the neighbourhood, and then by sitting on a wooden bench at the garden on the other side of the street, right in front of the group home.

And now that it was already two minutes past seven, her hour long wait – which was necessary due to her very early departure to the group home – was almost over. In about five minutes, she'd go to the group home's door and knock. Granted, the group home's door was meant to open at seven, but it was rare for two strangers to have their watches exactly synchronized, and that from the people at the group home could be either a few minutes ahead or behind Evie's. She was already taking a gamble by showing up so early; she didn't want to stretch the rope by knocking before visitors were first allowed. However much she disliked it, it was better to just wait a few minutes longer.

Unfortunately, right as Evie was about to declare the end of her wait, she was stalled further. As she was about to rise from the garden bench she sat on, a blond guy in a white t-shirt and light grey shorts, apparently in the midst of a morning run, approached her, a remarkably interested gleam in his eye.

Unsure of whether to stand up faster and stride over to the group home or to stay where she was looking indifferent, Evie remained at the bench, which gave the boy time to stop beside her, a cocky grin on his face.

"'Morning, babe," he said in a tone that Evie figured was meant to be engaging.

She didn't even give him a second glance.

"Didn't you hear me?" the guy insisted. "I said good morning!"

Evie turned to look at him, making no effort to hide her annoyance.

"You said 'morning', not 'good morning'. And my parents taught me not to talk to strangers, so I don't have to reply to one."

The guy blinked stupidly as if he'd been smacked. Evie hoped he'd get the hint and keep his jog, but instead he struck again.

"How are we supposed to stop being strangers if we don't talk?"

Seeing that the annoyed tone was not working, Evie put on a deliberately icy one, and narrowed her eyes at the guy like an eagle training its sight on a rabbit. "Who told you that I'd like you to stop being a stranger?"

The guy grimaced at Evie's tone, but quickly reassumed a grin and tried again, although with much less conviction.

"Don't be so frigid, babe! Loosen up!"

He reached out toward her, but Evie stepped away from his hand before it could touch her, and stood up to look him in the eye. Still in her frigid tone, she said, "I know where you want to take this, so I'll spare you the effort. I have a boyfriend, and I love him, and I wouldn't cheat on him for anything or anyone, so I kindly ask you to leave me alone."

At long last, the guy deflated; Evie realized then that maybe she should have gone for that tactic a bit sooner. She didn't have the habit of broadcasting that she had a boyfriend, because Zac was no trophy to be owned or displayed, but she wasn't ashamed of her relationship with him either. Not that it was any of the guy's business whether she had a boyfriend; a decent guy took a no at face value, and him making moves on her in such a manner reminded her of Suncoast High's top athletes that had new girlfriends every week.

"Can't fault a guy for trying, can you?" he at last said.

Evie couldn't reply without lying or sounding rude, so she kept her mouth shut, still giving the guy a stern look. After a few seconds, he shrugged and resumed his jog. Evie followed him with her eyes until he was far enough for her to be sure he wouldn't return for another try.

Then she took a glance at her watch and crossed the street. At least chatting to the guy had eaten up enough time for her to be sure that the group home's door would already be open.

Once she got to the gate on the wall around the group home – which consisted of two solid metal plates with no bars except on the very top – she pressed the bell to the gate's right, located above an intercom. After letting it ring for a few seconds, she removed her finger and waited.

After several seconds without someone showing up or a response from an intercom, Evie rang the bell again. This time, it only took a few instants before she heard a door opening, followed by a sound of footsteps, and afterwards by that of an electric lock clicking right in front of her. Then the gate was pulled open by a short, matronly dark-skinned woman in a cyan blouse and navy skirt, who looked none too happy at having someone ringing her doorbell so early.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked after looking Evie up and down, sounding half-inclined to simply shut the gate on her face.

"Good morning," Evie greeted. "I'm here because I was hoping to see a friend of mine who lives here. Can I come in?"

The woman gave a step forward as if wanting to use her bulk to make sure Evie wouldn't do just that without permission.

"Who is this friend of yours, young lady?"

After taking a few seconds to ponder her words, Evie started her description. "Her name is Alana, she is around my age, about this tall," she thrust her hand to a bit above her ear "is pale, has big blue eyes, wavy red hair down to here," she gestured to her waist, "and speaks with an Irish accent."

That was the best Evie could do, but she could see a glimmer of recognition in the woman's eyes as the description went on.

"She lives here, doesn't she?" Evie insisted.

The woman nodded. "Yes, she does," she replied in a calmer tone. "Did you tell her you were coming?"

"No. I wanted it to be a surprise."

The woman sighed as if in regret, which caused Evie to frown. "Then you're out of luck, dear. She just got out. You missed her by a minute or two."

Evie felt her eyes tripling in size after the response she got.

"She what?" Evie repeated, just to make sure her ears weren't deceiving her.

"You heard me. She just got out." The woman again sighed, this time in hopelessness. "That girl's always the same. Whether she arrives on time for dinner or only arrives when it's time to go to bed, she's always out of here at seven, give or take a few minutes."

 _I can't believe it!_ Evie thought. _All the effort of getting up and waiting only to miss her by so little?_

And all because of that guy who'd wasted her time by making a move on her! If he showed up again right now, Evie wouldn't know if she could refrain herself from slapping him. Some might call it a too extreme response to a guy who'd made an attempt at flirting with her, but because of him Evie had lost her chance to warn Alana about the dangerous mermen in the neighbourhood.

"Do you have any idea where she went?" Evie asked, hoping the woman would have an answer.

The woman shook her head sadly. "Not really. Alana doesn't talk a lot. She's the sweetest girl you can imagine, and polite as everything, but from the way she behaves you'd think she's a sheep living with a group of hungry lions that could devour her at any second."

Evie nodded sympathetically. She could tell the woman was really worried for Alana and wanted to help her, but she wouldn't blame Alana either. The place looked nice, but it was still a group home, which by design was never a nice place to be in even for a regular teen. For someone who had to constantly worry about not getting as much as a drop of water on her it had to be ten times worse.

The woman then frowned in thought, and said, "But now that I think of it, when she goes out she almost always takes her guitar and her flute. Does that help you with anything?"

Evie thought for a bit. She did know Alana liked music; she had told her that during the day they spent together. Evie knew that Alana liked listening to music, writing songs, playing them, and singing them. But Alana hadn't told Evie anything related to music that might help her to find her. The fact Alana went out with her instruments could mean a plethora of things, to her simply wanting to keep them out of the hands of the other foster kids to her playing for money somewhere in an attempt to have some money for savings, or to eat at a place where she didn't have to fight for every crumb or worrying about getting drinks spilled on her.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't," Evie said, hating that it was the truth.

"Then if you want to talk to her, you'll really have to come back later," the woman stated.

"How much later?" Evie asked.

After a few seconds of thought, the woman replied, "It depends. Sometimes she's here at around seven in the afternoon, other times she only arrives at nine."

Wonderful. Ten to twelve hours with Alana not knowing that there were dangerous mermen about, ten to twelve hours in which said mermen could catch her and do God knows what to her. It was so frustrating that Evie wanted to seize two fistfuls of her hair. But she couldn't do that with the woman standing in front of her, so she just said as politely as she could, "Thank you for your help. I'll come back later."

"Have a good day, dear," the woman said. "See you later."

Then she closed the gate.

Her heart heavy with concern, Evie ambled away, weighing her options. She wished she could just run all over town looking for Alana, but the Gold Coast was a big place, and she had no idea where Alana would go, with or without instruments. She didn't have a picture of Alana either, so she couldn't just ask people if they had seen her. And worst of all, she knew from the day they had spent together that Alana didn't have a cell phone, so she couldn't even call her; if she could, that would have been the first thing she would have done.

She could also try to swim around to find Alana, but the ocean was even bigger than the Gold Coast, and if she went in alone, she would be an even bigger target than Alana. At least she was presumably unknown by Erik or any henchmen of his and, not being part of the pod, could be safe. At the risk of sounding pretentious, Evie guessed any henchmen of Erik would know about her and wouldn't be shy about getting their hands on her if they caught her alone in the sea.

Besides, she couldn't spend the whole day looking for Alana. She had to go meet Zac and Mimmi at the bungalow so they could tell the truth to Zac's parents. And after that she had to watch over her father and the divers he took out. While she would make a break for lunch, it wouldn't be big enough for her to realistically find Alana while it lasted.

 _Good thing I took the day off._ Evie thought. _Though I never imagined I'd be spending it like this._

How ironic. She had initially taken the day off to be with Alana, and now, for all the good use she'd put her day off to, being with Alana would be the one thing she couldn't do.

Resigned to the fact, Evie looked for a taxi to get to Zac's home, hoping from the bottom of her heart that when she returned to the group home at night, she would be on time to warn Alana about Erik's henchmen.

* * *

To Chris' relief, the car ride home went by without any incidents. Although his grandfather and Mr. Burgstaller had spent half the trip giving each other cold looks and the other half exchanging badly-disguised barbs, it was something both Chris and Karl were used to, so neither brought it up. While there were a few points of nervousness for Chris, all related to Karl drinking from a bottle of water during the trip, there was no sudden stop or sharp turn that caused the liquid to fly about in the car, and Chris and his grandfather managed to get home without any tail filling up the car.

After the luggage was all inside, conversation was further delayed by his grandfather's insistence on making him some breakfast. Chris had tried to protest, but his stomach had betrayed him before he'd gotten a sentence out, prompting a chuckle from his grandfather before he went to make breakfast. His grandfather's cooking was delicious on any day, but after a day with only airplane food on the menu, Chris devoured his toasts and slurped his coffee in minutes.

But by the time he was done, when his grandfather lead him to their couch, Chris realized he should have spent a bit longer eating, for one simple reason. If he had taken the time to eat, he could have made one last attempt at planning the conversation he wanted to have. He hadn't been able to come up with anything on the plane, as he'd spent the time either sleeping fitfully or doing everything he could not to get a drop of water or any water-related fluid on his skin. He also hadn't been able to think of anything during the car ride, because of how Karl had decided to have a drink and Chris had been scared to death that some slip-up of the driver would cause him to get soaked and reveal his tail to everyone in the car. Now that the time to speak had arrived, Chris seemed to have found himself empty of words to explain the situation. because that would have given him time to make another attempt at planning the conversation he wanted to have.

"So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about that could only be discussed with me?" his grandfather asked once they were both sitting down on the couch.

Chris thought for a bit. As much as he had started to consider the possibility that his grandfather's more fantastic stories were real, or at least that they had a real basis, he couldn't very well tell him out of the blue that he had gone to a magical pool and gotten a tail, and didn't remember more than a few flashes of the event. There had to be some sort of lead up to it. But what?

After several moments thinking about it, Chris settled on one that he didn't like at all, but which would work for his purposes.

"What would say if I told you I had gotten punch drunk during my last night at San Diego?"

His grandfather frowned at the question.

"I'd say that it would be out of character for you, but that we all make mistakes sometimes, and we can learn from them."

Chris hid a wince. Although his grandfather had spoken in a calm tone, Chris could tell he was surprised and a bit disappointed at the idea of Chris ending up drunk. Chris couldn't blame him; he was even more upset himself at the possibility of breaking a vow he'd made when he was fourteen and which he'd never gone against before. While he no longer gave as much credence to the idea he had been drunk as when he first considered it, thanks to Karl having made some good points during their brief conversation in San Diego, it was still a possibility to consider. Perhaps his grandfather would have something else to say on the matter.

"And what would you say if I told you that, while I was punch drunk, I somehow ended up in a magical pool while the full moon passed over head, and somehow that made it so that from now on, if a single drop of water touches me, I become a merman ten seconds later?" Chris went on.

His grandfather's widened to twice their normal size at that question, clear amazement in them. But somehow, it didn't seem the kind of amazement Chris would expect in anyone else at such a question. It seemed that his grandfather was amazed at the fact such a thing had happened to him, but not that it was possible for such a thing to happen.

"I'd find that very interesting," his grandfather finally replied, saying the word 'interesting' without any sarcastic undertones.

A bit more confident, but still nervous, Chris asked, "And what would you say if I told you that I'm about to show you that transformation, if you'd be willing to see it?"

"I'd say 'go ahead and show me'," his grandfather replied, this time without hesitation, and an utterly serious tone.

Chris searched his grandfather's face for signs of disbelief of sarcasm, looking for anything that might sound out of the ordinary. But, like he both expected and didn't expect, he found none. Somehow, his grandfather fully believed him and wanted to see his transformation.

All the same, there was something he could not help but ask.

"Why are you taking this so naturally?"

Still as serious as before, but also looking genial, his grandfather asked, "Am I not the one who told you to always believe the magic in the world? To always assume that there are still a lot of secrets waiting to be discovered?"

True. His grandfather had told him both things since a young age. And Chris knew him; from the way he was speaking, he truly believed both things. Perhaps there really was quite a lot of truth to the stories he'd so often told when Chris was a boy, the ones that had become his favourites even though he'd always guessed they were among the only ones that truly had to be fictional.

"None of this is hypothetical, is it?" his grandfather asked.

Although it had been voiced as a question, Chris could tell his grandfather already knew the answer. Somehow, that both calmed him down and upset him. If his grandfather really was familiar with merpeople, then he shouldn't freak out over seeing Chris with a tail, which was a relief. But now that Chris was almost sure his grandfather expected him to get a tail, he couldn't help but start wondering if his grandfather knew of a way to make this go away, a way for him to just be normal again and be able to work with dolphins like he had dreamed of doing for years.

His insides twisting like snakes, Chris took a deep breath, and then replied, "I think it will be better if I just show you."

After his grandfather nodded, Chris stood up, went to get a towel from the bathroom and a glass of water from the kitchen, and sat back down on the couch. He laid the towel on the couch's arm rest, and then raised the glass of water up to his chest.

"Here goes," Chris warned. His grandfather nodded.

Holding the glass as firmly as he could, Chris took a deep breath, raised his free arm, and turned the glass over so that the water trickled down on his exposed forearm. Once he'd gotten enough water there, he set the glass down beside him, and waited.

For the first ten seconds, nothing happened. Then, Chris felt the familiar ripple travel through him, joined by the paralysis taking hold of his body for an instant as his whole body seemed to become covered in a translucid film.

An instant later, he was sitting on his grandfather's couch, bare chested, and with the scaly, blue tail he'd first seen off the shore of Grim Island stretched out before him on the floor.

For the first few seconds, his grandfather looked at the tail in puzzlement. Then, a look of awe on his face, he said, "Would you look at that…"

* * *

When Mimmi first saw Evie walking toward the bungalow, her heart both jumped in joy and prickled. Evie having arrived meant that they could finally start telling Zac's parents the truth about themselves, and while Mimmi was indeed apprehensive about two more land people knowing their secret (hopefully the last two for some time), she was also looking forward to it, for one simple reason.

Once Zac's parents knew the truth about them, she could finally be Zac's sister without needing to hide it from anyone, rather than just a friend who had to be careful not to be too openly close to him in case others got too suspicious and thought he was cheating on Evie. While she understood somewhat why Zac was reluctant to tell his parents, and had accepted his decision not to do so, it was painful for her to not be able to be as close to the only family she had as she wanted to be, and while Zac meant well, she didn't think he truly knew how much it hurt her. Him having decided to tell the truth, even if it was for such a reason, had made her so happy that when she learned of his decision she had been unable to stop herself from hugging him.

But as Evie got close enough for Mimmi to make out her face, her happiness deflated somewhat, as a glance at her was all it took for Mimmi to see that the conversation with Alana hadn't gone well. Zac clearly noticed the same, because he rested a comforting arm on her shoulders as soon as she got close enough for that, which Evie thanked with a smile.

"How did it go?" Mimmi asked, although she already had basically guessed the answer.

Evie shrugged sadly. "It didn't. I couldn't talk to her. She had already gone out when I rang the bell."

Mimmi's eyes narrowed quizzically.

"So soon?" Zac asked from beside Evie.

"Yes," Evie then scowled and started speaking in a much angrier tone. "And what's worse, I missed her for a minute; all because of a moron who decided to make a move on me and stalled me exactly at the wrong time."

Zac squeezed Evie's shoulder comfortingly, and asked, "Do you want to look for her?"

Evie gave him a mirthless smile. "I wish I could, but I have no idea where she went. The only thing I can do now is go back there tonight and pray that neither Erik nor any of his underlings got their hands on her in the meantime."

Mimmi shivered at the thought. Even though Erik no longer had the trident stone, she remembered the look on his face when he'd been about to start up the chamber. He might never have intended to use it to destroy mermaids (something she had more and more trouble believing) but if he was currently sending henchmen after them, whatever peaceful intentions he had were gone for sure. Hopefully Alana wouldn't run into him or anyone working for him before Evie managed to warn her. If Erik was indeed as out for revenge as they gathered he was, the idea of any mermaid ending up dealing with him sounded scary.

"And you?" Evie asked, seemingly anxious to change subjects. "How did it go with Chris?"

Mimmi grinned slightly. "It went well. He was tired, but he seemed really glad to see him, and we already have a lunch date for today."

"I'm really glad to know that," Evie said with a grin of her own.

Mimmi's smile widened a bit. It was good to have some support from Evie after the grief Ondina had given her before taking off to meet the pod. While Zac had not been outwardly vocal about any disapproval he felt toward the idea, she could sense he was a bit wary at the idea of his sister going on a date. In a way, Mimmi found it sweet that he cared so much about her, but in another, she found she had the right to live her love life and didn't want Zac meddling in it.

Before the issue could be brought up again, however, Mimmi suggested, "Let's do this then?"

She nodded her head to Zac's home – not the bungalow, but the 'main residence' –in order to convey what the 'this' meant.

As Evie put a comforting arm around his back, Zac took a deep breath and said, "Sure."

After a few more seconds of hesitation, the three of them walked toward Zac's home, the same mix of apprehension and excitement rearing up inside Mimmi.

* * *

As Chris finished drying himself and returned to his legged form, Max couldn't help but keep giving an amazed look at the spot where his grandson's tail had been. He may have seen comparable things before – after all, Chris' tail, other than the colour, wasn't that different from those of all the mermaids he had ever seen – but seeing his grandson, someone of his family, dealing with the predicament that had afflicted Gracie somehow impacted him more than seeing Cleo after almost fifty years during which mermaids were a mere memory, or than Charlotte coming to him with questions about Mako Island. One way or the other, this situation was much closer to him than any of those others, and although he had dealt with at least one issue with more 'global impact' – over three years ago, when Cleo, Rikki, and their friend Bella had come to ask him if he knew of any way to hurl a giant comet away from the Earth – this made him feel almost as apprehensive as that. Max could already tell that his grandson was confused and scared and hurt by having gotten a tail, and already felt completely at a loss to help him deal with it.

In an effort to start somewhere, Max asked, "You said you gained this tail when you ended up in a magical pool while the full moon was passing over?"

Chris set the towel aside and nodded. "That's right. I have no memory of actually going there, but I have a few flashes of the event; churning water, a strange green tornado, the full moon passing overhead… and that's about it."

That was strange. All the mermaids Max had met remembered their transformation. Gracie, Louise, and Julia had perfectly remembered finding the moon pool on Mako while they were exploring, just like Cleo, Emma, and Rikki. And that other mermaid who had become friends with them, Bella, also remembered finding that cave in Ireland in which she'd become a mermaid. Why wouldn't Chris have any memory of it? Were mermen somehow different in that aspect?

So he could buy time to think about that, he asked, "And the fact you don't remember any of that is the reason you think you were drunk, isn't it?"

Chris' shoulders sagged. "Yes," he lamented. "But I have no memory of drinking a single drop of alcohol. Really!"

"I believe you," Max soothed. "And I don't think you were drunk. If you were, you would at least remember that you started drinking. Whatever the reason you don't remember what happened, it has nothing to do with alcohol or any other substance."

Chris let out a massive sigh of relief at those words. Max allowed him to bask in it, and gave him more time to see if Chris would ask any question. Eventually, he did.

"So, do you have any idea on how I may have gone to that magical pool?"

Max thought back on everything he'd seen and heard since he first learned about mermaids. The full moons he'd tried to help Gracie, Louise, and Julia coping with the moonlight, and all the antics he'd endured when one or more of them got affected. The conversations he and Lewis had about Lewis' own experiences with mermaids affected by the full moon. There didn't seem to be any specific pattern to what the full moon did; it generally just seemed to mess with a mermaid's head. But on a few occasions, it gave them extra powers, like on that time Gracie's singing voice had become so much more beautiful and alluring than it usually was…

Clarity burst through Max. He'd just had an idea on why Chris would not remember going to that island. Chris must have picked up on it, because he asked, "What is it? Do know why I don't remember going to that island?"

Max tried to reply in the calmest voice and with the most neutral expression he could. "I do, but you may not like what you hear."

He could see the hesitation starting to creep onto Chris' eyes at those words, and his grandson's next words were spoken in a hesitant tone, but he still said, "I'd rather know anyway."

Max took a deep breath, and then, in a tone he barely managed to keep calm, he said, "If I had to guess, I'd say you were lured there by a mermaid."

"WHAT?" Chris shouted, a scared and furious look on his face. Seeing Max wince, he lowered his voice on the next question, but the same anger remained there, "You mean I became this because some mermaid decided to use me as toy?"

Max raised his hands in appeasement. "Chris, for what it's worth, it most likely was not her fault. The full moon can addle a mermaid's mind in a very powerful manner. It can make them do all sorts of things they'd never consider in their normal state, and give them all kinds of powers they normally don't have. One of those is siren singing, which I know from experience would explain why you don't remember anything more than vague flashes."

Chris didn't look any calmer than before, and Max couldn't fault him either. While Gracie's siren singing had only lasted for one full moon, who was to say that other moon pools around the world didn't grant siren singing as a normal power, or that only kind-hearted girls would get powers? In spite of his reassurances to Chris, Max knew there was a possibility that the mermaid's behaviour had been deliberate.

Even if it wasn't, it didn't matter. Chris wasn't any less a merman whether the mermaid had meant to turn him or whether it had been an accident.

Chris' voice, thankfully now calmer than before, broke through his thoughts. "Well, I confess I had thought about that possibility before, but it's still a shock to know it was the truth."

Max could imagine. Even though he had trusted Gracie with all his heart, the way she had unwittingly played him and all the boys she had drawn with her singing had still made him uncomfortable. It had to be much worse if it happened because of a stranger, especially if, in spite of Max's belieb that it was an accident, it had actually been done on purpose.

"Is that why you're taking this so awfully calmly?" Chris carried on. "Because you've seen this before?"

Seeing the joke Chris had walked into, Max quipped, "Awfully? Is it awful that I'm calm? Would you rather I started pulling out hair by the fistfuls and shouting at the top of my lungs, or clutching my chest as if I was having a heart attack?"

Chris chuckled and cracked a grin. "No, I definitely wouldn't prefer any of that. But still… from how you're reacting, you sound as if you've seen others like me before."

Max chuckled himself. "Well, you are the first merman I see, but you're not the first merperson I see."

Even as he spoke, it seemed that all of a sudden he was back on Mako Island, over fifty years ago, seeing his three best friends with tails in the moon pool for the first time, Gracie smiling shyly at him while Louise and Julia tried to decide whether to be scared someone had found out or relieved that they now had someone to help them.

Again, it must have showed on his face, because Chris asked knowingly, "Was Gracie a mermaid?"

"Yes, she was," Max replied. "And so were Louise and Julia."

A downcast look started making his way onto Chris' face; all three mermaids they had mentioned so far had already passed away. Still, he asked, in a hopeful voice, "Have you met any more mermaids?"

Grateful to be able to give his grandson some good news, Max replied, "I have. And you also have met them, even though you didn't know about their mermaid side before."

After a few seconds of thinking, Chris' eyes started to widen, undoubtedly as he started to work out the identities of the mermaids he had met without knowing what they were. "You mean Cleo, Emma, Rikki, and Bella…"

"Yes," Max confirmed. "They're all mermaids."

Chris dwelled on it for a moment longer, and then asked, "Out of curiosity, have I met any other mermaid?"

"Only one."

This time, Chris thought about the issue for much longer than with the previous guess. But like before, he guessed correctly. "Charlotte? She also is one?"

"Yes, she is."

Chris' eyes widened in alarm.

"But she's Gracie's granddaughter!" he exclaimed. "Is the 'merperson thing' is passed on from parents to children?"

Max clicked his tongue noncommittally. "Unfortunately, I have no answer for that question. Louise never had children to begin with, Julia only had an adopted son, and Gracie was no longer a mermaid by the time she had children."

Chris perked up.

"Gracie stopped being a mermaid?" he asked. "So there's a way to get rid of this tail?"

Max winced as if he'd taken a blow to the heart. Although he wasn't Gracie's grandson, Chris' hopefulness was far too much like hers had been whenever Max had thought he'd found a way for her to lose her tail. It hurt. It hurt doubly because Max knew he didn't have the answer Chris wanted.

But he also knew Chris wanted an answer to begin with, so he steeled himself and replied, "There are at least two ways to get rid of it. Unfortunately, I don't have any clue about one of them, and the other one won't be available for the next forty-five years."

The disappointed look on Chris' face caused Max to wince again.

"What is that way that won't be available for the next forty-five years?" he asked in a low, dejected voice.

"It's a special planetary alignment. If you are in a moon pool while the full moon passes overhead during that alignment, you lose your tail, at least until you fall into another moon pool while the full moon passes overhead. That's how Gracie got rid of her tail."

Only five years ago, Max had thought said planetary arrangement actually removed a mermaid's tail forever, but he had learned it wasn't so after Charlotte recovered her tail on the very same place where she lost it, and realized that, for whatever reason, Gracie had lied to him and the others when she said she had tried to recover her tail and failed. He had tried not to judge her too hard then, and he did the same now; after all, it was difficult to strike a balance between being a mermaid and a normal girl, and Gracie might just have been too afraid to try and do so again. But still, it hurt that she had lied, not only to him, but to Louise and Julia.

Chris' brow wrinkled as he worked out Max's words, as if he had found something about them didn't make sense.

"How can there be a specific planetary alignment once in every fifty years?" Chris brought up. "Every planet past Saturn has longer orbital periods."

Max shrugged. "I don't know myself. I did my best to work it out, but science and magic don't mingle, and most of my attempts at understanding it have fallen through. All I can say is that apparently, there is more than one planetary alignment that can do a specific thing."

Looking like he was suppressing a sigh of hopelessness, Chris asked, "Do you really have no clue what the other way to get rid of a tail is?"

"I don't," Max replied, thinking how accurate the saying that truth hurt was in this case. "All I can tell you is that, the last time I met Louise and Julia, when we were in our thirties, they had already gotten rid of their tails. They told me they did it at the same time and using the same process, but that's all I ever got out of them."

The hopelessness now more evident on his features, Chris tried to insist, "They didn't even give you the slightest hint?"

Max shook his head sideways. "None at all."

Chris' shoulders dropped, and he looked down at the floor between his feet, shaking his head in hopelessness.

"So that's it," he murmured. "I'm stuck like this. Great."

Unsure of what else he could do, Max shuffled close to Chris and wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders.

* * *

Just as she was putting the breakfast dishes on the dishwasher, Lauren Blakely heard the sound of her house's front door opening. Having a good idea of who it was, she closed the dishwasher and turned on that direction, while her husband Rob finished closing the fridge's door after putting the leftover pancakes inside it and their friend Doug looked in the same direction.

A few seconds later, Zac and Evie walked into the kitchen, followed by Mimmi. Lauren greeted them with a smile, in spite of her surprise at seeing Mimmi with Zac and Evie.

"Hi Evie," Rob said when she walked in. "And Mimmi," he added upon noticing her, unable to keep the edge of surprise from his voice.

"Good morning, Doctor Blakely," Evie greeted back, while Mimmi only smiled in greeting, more shyly than seemed to be usual for her, from what Lauren knew at least.

"Do you want to eat anything?" she offered. "There are still pancakes in the fridge, and I can make more orange juice easily enough."

All three of them shook their heads in disagreement at different intervals and speeds.

"Thanks mum, but we already ate," Zac said.

Lauren tried not to look worried, but it was difficult not to. As a rule, by this time her son wouldn't even be out of bed during Winter Vacation, much less having already eaten breakfast. Yet this was the third day in a row in which Zac got up early. That suggested something was wrong, or at least, unusual. But what could it be?

"Doug told us that you have something to tell us," she said.

Zac nodded. "We do. If you would be willing to listen to it, that is."

Zac's tone set her even further on edge. From the way he spoke, it sounded as if, even though Zac was willing to tell, he thought they would regret having listened afterwards. Taken aback by it, Lauren stepped forward and took Zac's hand in both of hers. "Of course we would be willing to listen."

"You know you can tell us anything, son," Rob added.

Zac briefly smiled, but the gesture seemed mechanic, and it only made Lauren more uneasy. Then, he gestured to the kitchen table.

And so all six of them did; herself, Rob, and Doug on one side, Zac, Evie, and Mimmi on the other, filling the kitchen table to the top of its capacity. Thankfully it was in the middle of the kitchen; if it was propped up against a corner, half of its seats would be blocked.

"So, what is it you wanted to tell us?" Lauren asked as comfortingly as possible.

Zac leaned his elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers together, his hands raised in front of his face. For several moments, he repeatedly rapped the knuckles of his left hand with his right index finger.

Then, he began speaking, "Well, beginning with the more important things, I need to tell you about Mimmi. I'd imagine you both noticed we've been spending a lot of time together, and you're wondering why."

Lauren noticed Mimmi giving Zac a touched look at that statement, as if the fact he found whatever he had to say that concerned her 'more important'. At least it explained why Mimmi would be here. But what exactly could it be that he wanted to tell them which also concerned her?

"We've been spending more time together because of something we found out four months ago," Zac went on.

Beside her, Rob kept his face impassively patient. Lauren tried to keep calm herself, as she didn't want to unsettle her son one way or the other, but she was growing ever more eager to know whatever it. She noticed, however, that Doug simply looked unsurprised, as if for some reason he already knew what Zac was going to say. She would have to question him on it later.

Zac took a deep breath, lowered his arms, and then he shot out so fast Lauren barely told the words apart, "We found out that she is my twin sister."

Lauren took in a sharp breath, while Rob gaped beside her. She had been counting on something unexpected, but not this kind of unexpected. The idea of their son not only having a biological sister but finding her sixteen years of separation seemed preposterous! It would make a lovely story for a television series or for a literary novel, but these things didn't happen in reality. Not as often as fiction liked to pretend they did, anyway.

"What?" Rob asked, having recovered his voice before Lauren could.

"Exactly what I said, Dad," Zac said patiently, his fingers no longer interlaced. "Mimmi is my twin sister."

Rob shook his head in disbelief, but he seemed to do it just because; his eyes were narrowed and focused, and Lauren could see him dwelling on the issue as if he was seriously considering Zac's words.

Lauren wanted to contest Zac's words, but she caught Mimmi shifting out of the corner of her eye before she could speak, and for some reason, it was as if she saw the girl for the first time.

With her son's words working in her mind, she couldn't help but notice that he and Mimmi actually looked very much alike. They had the same hair colour, the same skin tone, similar eye shapes, similar facial structures, similar profiles; she could even see a simile of Zac's smile in Mimmi's! The only thing they didn't seem to have in common was their eyes, as Mimmi's were blue while Zac's were brown. And them having found out about it would explain why they were spending so much time together, as well as why Evie not only didn't mind that they spent time together, but frequently spent time with the two of them as well.

It might be something out of fiction, but now that Lauren could see it, it seemed as obvious as gravity had seemed to Isaac Newton after his incident with the apple.

There were still puzzling issues, though.

"You say you've known about this for four months?" Lauren asked. "Why didn't you tell us before? Why didn't you tell us on the day we told you about where you came from? We could have gotten to know her better, welcomed her properly…"

Lauren again caught Mimmi out of the corner of her eye; the girl looked beside herself with happiness at what she heard. Although she had only know Mimmi was Zac's sister for less than a minute, Lauren felt a sudden urge to stand up and hug her.

Zac's voice brought her back to reality.

"Mimmi wanted me to tell you." Zac glanced to his right. "So did Evie, for that matter. But I was too hesitant about it. The way I learned I am Mimmi's brother was a bit hectic, to say the least."

Lauren raised an eyebrow pointedly. "And yet you told Evie and Doug?" Not giving Zac time to try to appear innocent, she added, "Before you try to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, let me tell you I'm not blind or deaf. You just implied to us that Evie knows you're siblings, and I noticed very well that neither Evie nor Doug looked surprised by what you just said. That means they already know. Why would you tell them and not us?"

She didn't say anything about them being his parents even if they didn't share any blood with him, but she knew the words already hung implicitly. And no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise, it hurt her that Zac had told his girlfriend and her father such a thing before telling her and Rob. The fact Zac and Evie had known one another since children softened the blow a bit, but still… Lauren and Rob were his parents. They should have been the first ones to know.

"Like Zac said, the way we learned we are siblings was a bit hectic," Mimmi said, speaking for the first time since she had arrived.

"I wasn't there at the time, but the three of us ended up talking not long after, and I learned," Evie added.

Rob turned over to Doug, and although his back was turned to her, Lauren could see the confused pain in her husband's face as clearly as if he was looking at her. "And you, Doug? How did you learn?"

Doug gulped, his wrinkles deepening. "I only learned two days ago, when Evie told me why she stopped diving with me. That conversation took a few unexpected turns, and Evie ended up telling me that Mimmi was Zac's sister."

"And you didn't tell us?" Lauren asked, not bothering to keep the pain off of her voice. She had thought Doug was her and Rob's friend; she had believed he wouldn't keep something so important from them.

"I asked him not to," Evie interjected before her father could reply, a regretful and apologetic look on her own face.

Lauren sighed deeply, some of her hurt shifting from Doug to Evie. She could understand a bit better that Doug wouldn't tell such a thing with that motivation in mind, but she still expected him to have wanted to tell them and to have explained to Evie why they should know.

"Wait, let's rewind." Rob interrupted as if he'd suddenly realized something. "What does Evie having stopped diving with you have to do with Mimmi being Zac's sister?"

That was an excellent point. What would two subjects as unrelated as these have to do with one another?

"Plenty, as you will understand," Zac replied, sounding like he was answering both their questions. "If you just let me tell you, I can explain everything."

Rob and Lauren nodded, but rather than telling them anything, Zac simply leaned his elbows on the table and again raised his hands with interlaced fingers in front of his face. Lauren waited as patiently as he could for her son to start speaking, but all Zac did was first sway his hands back and forth in an imitation of a cartoon hypnotist swaying a watch.

Lauren tried to keep waiting, but Zac simply kept swaying his arms, as if doing so was meant to help him come up with the right words. Eventually he stopped, but only to start rapping his knuckles with his index finger, like he had done before.

Eventually, right as Rob seemed about to start drumming his fingers on the kitchen table himself, Zac spoke up. "Actually, it might be better if I start by showing you something."

Lauren nodded. Whatever it was Zac had to show them, she would see if it would help her learning what was going on.

"Sure, son," Rob added. "What is it you need to show us?"

Zac started raising his right hand, as if that was part of whatever he wanted to show them, but then lowered it again and asked, "Could the three of you stand up and back away? We will need some space."

Lauren found the request strange, but all the same she stood up, just as Rob and Doug did. Again, Lauren noticed that Doug did not seem surprised, nor did he have any looks of anticipation. Somehow, it seemed that again, he already knew what was coming.

Just what else had their son shared with him that he wouldn't share with his own parents?

Before Lauren could dwell on the issue, their kitchen table moved aside seemingly out of its own accord, sliding along the kitchen floor's tiles until it rested by the stove, as neatly as if it was one of those modern cars driven and parked by an expert driver.

Lauren's heart leapt in her chest, and Rob's eyes bugged out so much they looked like tennis balls.

 _How did he do that?_

She knew Zac was strong, but to the point of shoving a table aside so easily? And how had he been able to keep so much control of the table even after he pushed it?

Looking like he expected their amazement, Zac again raised his right hand. A strange scratching sound rose up from behind Lauren, as if something was trying to crawl out of the kitchen sink's tap.

Lauren look behind, and for once, she couldn't help but gape herself.

A living water tentacle was crawling out of the tap!

Lauren blinked repeatedly. Her sleepiness must be deceiving her. It had to be!

But no. No matter how much she blinked, the water tentacle remained where it was, snaking its way out of the tap, passing between her and Rob, and stopping over Zac. As its tip hovered over his head, it started to morph into a sphere, which grew and grew.

"What on Earth…" Rob whispered to her right.

 _Good question._ Lauren thought.

The sphere of water above Zac kept growing and growing, until it was the size of a basketball, when the last of the water tentacle finished crawling out of the tap. Then, both Evie and Mimmi raised their hands, and two smaller water balls, about the size of grapes, separated from the larger one above Zac. Once each of the girls had a sphere of water hovering over her, they clenched and unclenched their fists, and the spheres grew until they were as big as the one above Zac.

Once the spheres were done growing, each of them started changing shape. The one above Evie morphed into a dolphin, Zac made a walrus out of his', and Mimmi's became a bear.

For moments that felt eternal, she could only stare at what her son, his girlfriend, and his sister had just done. Then, at last, she managed to speak.

"How are you doing that?"

"With magic," Mimmi replied.

"Mimmi and I can do it because of what we are," Zac added.

What they were? What did he mean what they were? None of this made sense! They were normal humans just like all others.

Weren't they?

"What you are?" Rob asked from beside her.

"Yes, Doctor Blakely," Mimmi stated. "What we are."

After blinking repeatedly for an even longer period than she did, Rob shook his head in utter hopelessness.

"And what about you, Evie?" Rob asked her. "Are you an ordinary female specimen of _Homo sapiens sapiens_ , or are you something else also?"

Evie seemed to ponder her answer for a bit, and then replied, "Well, I was born as a regular human, and was one until a bit over six months ago, but something happened to me then that changed me into what I am today."

"And what would that be?" Rob asked, somewhere between puzzled and disbelieving that the whole thing was happening.

Evie once more thought for a few seconds before replying, "Something between a human and what Zac and Mimmi are."

The statement seemed to hang between the two groups like a giant question mark.

"Right…" Rob drawled after a few moments of silence.

Lauren could tell he didn't believe a single word of what Evie was saying. And she couldn't blame him. After all, magic didn't exist, or at least it wasn't supposed to exist! Every purported form of it was nothing more than illusionism that only worked because the audience didn't know the secret behind it!

Yet, Lauren had problems seeing what exactly here could be hiding the illusion. Perhaps the table could have been pushed aside with magnets activated by some remote hidden in their clothes, but the water had crawled out of their tap, and Lauren had opened it this morning to make the orange juice and the coffee! It had been as normal as always, and none of the teens had done anything to it since arriving! And they didn't have any way of hiding anything powerful enough to manipulate water; not to mention that water couldn't be manipulated by devices like that.

And there was one more important detail. Once more, Lauren noticed that Doug did not seem amazed in the least. Now Lauren did not simply think that Doug already knew what was coming; she _realized_ that he _knew_ what was coming.

"It may be better if we just show you," Zac said, breaking another long silence. "Ready?" he asked, giving sideways looks at both Evie and Mimmi.

The two of them nodded. The water animals hovering above their heads seemed to collapse and fell down on the three kids as if they'd had buckets poured over them.

"Impressive," Rob joked. "You got wet. You know you'll have to wipe the floor now, don't you?"

A realization striking her like a lightning bolt, Lauren turned to look at her husband.

"It might be more impressive than we think, Rob," she warned.

After all, she hadn't seen Zac getting wet in over a year. Whether it was washing hands, taking showers, going swimming… nothing! He avoided water as if it was sulfuric acid. And clearly she was about to find out why.

Another moment passed by, all the teens looking ever more apprehensive as it did. Then, Lauren let out a gasp muted by a strange drizzling sound.

Before her amazed eyes, all three of them seemed to become somehow covered in a strange watery film, as their bodies both became paralysed and changed forms, their legs growing into something that looked suspiciously like… tails?

Unable to believe her eyes, Lauren shut them hard for several long seconds, before opening them again.

When the picture they saw didn't change, Lauren tried it for a second time. It had the same results.

In a last ditch effort, Lauren attempted to shut her eyes for a third time, as hard as she could, this time mentally willing them to show her what truly was before them.

And once more, the sight they showed her was the same. As unreal as it sounded, Lauren had to accept it was the truth.

And the truth was that Zac, Evie, and Mimmi were still sitting on their kitchen stools, their clothes gone, and with thick, scaly tails beginning at their waists, the parts of said tails not leaning against or supported by the chairs the teens sat on lying on her kitchen floor.

* * *

 **So, here is another chapter. I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **Once more, here is some fancasting. This time, it's a bit more unusual, in that I am fancasting characters who I'm not sure will appear again. But as there is a possibility they will (at least in regards to one of them), I'm doing it just in case.**

 **Simon (the guy who hit on Evie) - Patrick Ryan Anderson (who played Todd in Hannah Montana)**

 **Judith (the woman who talked to Evie) - Lia Fisher (who played Mia in Lightning Point)**

 **On a different note... to anyone with anything to say on the matter, I am aware that a new merperson telling a loved one about their tail so soon after getting it is unprecedented both in H2O and Mako Mermaids. However, please remember that Chris and Max not only are close (something which I hope I managed to establish in the previous chapters) but that Chris had very strong suspicions that Max already knew about merpeople. So after Chris confirmed them, there should logically be no reason for him not to tell his grandfather about him being a merman. I hope that came across clearly in the chapter itself, but just in case, I'm explaining it here.**

 **I also hope you've enjoyed the chapter, and that you enjoy its second part once it comes out. I'll try not to take too long with it.**


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